When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies
by mimujer
Summary: It was the summer of 1989 and the lives of the Breakfast Club were changing just as fast as the times. With the '80s nearing its end, they all must face the inevitability of their futures. When Claire becomes engaged to her college boyfriend Alec, the club reunites in a series of events that truly makes them wonder if growing up really did make their hearts die.
1. Chapter 1

**Claire.**

I awoke that morning early to the sound of the radio playing George Harrison and the stress of all that college had once brought to me completely gone. It was 1989, the year of Bush's first presidency, the Cold War was simmering out, and, perhaps more importantly, it was the day of my graduation from the University of Chicago. I was leaving with honours and a good plan for my future. In my eyes, I was destined to be an author, alike with the greats of Moliere and Tolstoy, but I had no idea where life would really take me once I threw my graduation cap into the air and all the pictures of the class of '89 had been taken.

After I took some time to rouse myself awake, I climbed out of my bed and went about my morning routine as I had done every day since I finished my last exam. I wrapped my pink silky dressing gown around me and headed for the kitchen area of my apartment. I still lived a comfortable life despite the circumstances, a distant attachment from my college friends who often said they were slumming it in the dingy parts of the city, living above bars and restaurants that they helped in at the weekends and in the evenings to pay off their rent. Despite how much I hated to admit it to myself, I had my dad to thank for all of it. Every month I'd become accustomed to a little cheque in the mail from daddy in Shermer, not too far away, sending me the monthly rent and letters about life at home.

They still lived in the same house they'd had all their life and he still had the same job, while my mother spent her time in the same country club, but every so often they would change around their help or someone would get fired and that was about as interesting as it got for them. Once he wrote about my brother coming home for the weekend outside of our designated holiday time together, but he left quickly after an argument over his career choice in music and I couldn't say I blamed him. Our parents have had life plans and goals for us that were set on the day we were both born, so I knew any plans I had to write were loose and available for much change, especially if I let them have a say in what I did. And I supposed that they definitely would, if the money I got had anything to do with it.

Even so, I headed for the kitchen and set the kettle on the hob to boil water for my green tea. I had tried to drink coffee once in the morning, but I found it too bitter and made me feel sluggish, while green tea seemed to make me feel lightheaded and fresh. I got out two cups, one for my tea bag and the other with a spoonful of decaf coffee, and pulled my face at the sight. I knew I had to get Alec off of the stuff as soon as possible. The box of coffee took up space in the cupboard that was already limited as it was.

While the kettle boiled, I put bread into the toaster and allowed myself to walk around the kitchen to stretch my limbs while I waited. The day was already growing hot and I felt too sweaty, so I shifted open one of the only windows in the kitchen area and allowed myself a moment to look outside at the streets below.

It was still early, but living in the city centre meant that it was already bustling. The university wasn't too far away, and I could already see families heading to restaurants for early breakfasts before the ceremony started, which made me panic for the arrival of my parents later on in the day. They had promised they would drive down on the day and wouldn't make us sit around in the apartment for too long, but I knew all of their promises were to be taken with a grain of salt. Last time they visited, because they wanted to see the place they were paying for, they had scrutinised the way I lived, saying I was too cluttered and unorganised. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the luxury of maid service here in the city of Chicago.

The kettle began to scream so I quickly turned the heat off so as not to wake anyone with the noise. I poured the water into the cups and stirred the coffee in with all the things Alec liked with it in the morning; one cream and no sugar, so it still gave him a jolt but not too much. Then I set to diluting my water with the tea, and finally sorted out our slices of toast. Mine with jam, his with peanut butter.

When I carried the drinks and food on a tray back into our bedroom, Alec was still asleep on the bed, spooning with the covers as if they were my body, his back exposed to the sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains. I set the tray down on the bedside table and went to open them, christening the room with the new day and causing a groan from the dozing body on the bed. I smiled at the sound, and turned around to face him, but he hadn't moved an inch.

Deciding to leave his breakfast where it was on the table, I went back over to the bed and got back in on my side over the covers, sitting cross legged next to him. I ran my fingers through his hair, the sunlight was turning its natural blonde tone golden and it looked beautiful. Sometimes I longed for my red to be that colour naturally, but I was never blessed with genes like that.

Eventually his eyes opened as I continued playing with his hair, and he looked up at me through red, groggy eyes.

"Remind me again why we went out for drinks last night?" he said, his voice coming out course and dry.

"Because my brother arrived early and wanted us to show him the city. Remember? Or did you forget that after your 4th vodka shot?"

"I'm never drinking again. I mean it this time." He sat up, finally, the covers falling off his body to expose his bare chest.

"Yeah, I believe you-this time." I got up from the bed and went to collect our food while Alec readjusted himself to get comfortable.

"Oh, Claire, you cut me so deep with your sarcasm. It's too early for that, thank you." I handed him his coffee, and he smiled up at me as he took it from my hand, pausing momentarily to take one of my hands in his own and press his lips against it. "You're so wonderful to me, you know that?"

"I think you're still drunk," I said, taking my hand away and going to sit down at the dressing table. I picked up my hair brush and began to run it through my hair, attempting to flatten it slightly ready to put my graduation cap over the top of it. The remnants of last night's hair spray was making it a difficult task, however, so I settled with leaving it as it was, falling at an awkward point just past my collarbones. I focused my attention to watch Alec in the mirror instead, sipping his coffee while it was still hot and watching me in turn.

"You're gonna have to pull it together for later," I began again, turning around to face him, "My parents will be there and…"

"Babe, it'll be fine. You're worrying too much. I'm sure your brother is in a much worse state than I am."

"Yeah, well, Christopher is 26 now, he can look after himself."

"You're right. And I'm 22, so I can look after myself, too," Alec said, taking another sip. I couldn't help but snort in response. "Hey, it's true!"

"What, you think you're gonna get yourself up every morning on time and be ready for school without my help?"

"I could if I wanted to. Luckily I have you, so I don't need to." He smiled, in the smart ass way he always did, and I felt a lot more relaxed than I had when I first woke up.

It was true that Alec probably could care for himself if he wanted. He could probably also afford a bigger apartment if he wanted to. His parents were wealthy like mine, but they lived out of state and were extremely detached. He had been an only child growing up and they had left him in the care of many different nannies over the years, while my parents were always around a little too much for my brother and me. It was by luck that I had found someone like him, who understood what money meant and the luxuries of it as well, but I guess I was just a lucky person. I had loved Alec for three years now, and it had been a wonderful time.

"Claire?" he said, placing his drink down beside him on his side table. I looked back over at him, and he moved the bed sheets to invite me back in. "I know what'll relax you… If you just take off that tiny dressing gown…"

I scoffed, and stood up from my chair, walking towards the bathroom instead. Alec laughed as I went, and I turned back to face him before I walked in. "I'm taking a shower and getting dressed, and you should too, or we'll be late."

He rolled his eyes and fell back into bed again, covering himself back up with the covers. I sighed and undid the ribbon of my dressing gown, slipping it from my body and throwing it at him on the bed, quickly walking over to the shower cubicle so as to leave him with the mental images.

* * *

By 4pm, I had finally accepted my diploma and I had officially graduated from college. It was a strange and rewarding feeling at the same time, and I wasn't sure if it felt good or not. As I looked up at the building that I owed the past 4 years of my education to, I almost felt quite sad to be leaving. I'd still have the apartment in the city for whenever I was here, but in a few days I'd be back in Shermer, and it would probably be like I had never left, because nothing every changed in that town.

When I found my parents, brother and Alec in the crowd, we all exchanged hugs and my mother cried into my arms for a few minutes.

"Oh, I'm so proud of you, darling!" she said, and I smiled and said thank you, because to be the object of someones proudness was quite an odd feeling.

It was confusing. I remembered being the centre of attention when I was younger. In high school I had even been one of those popular girls, but college was so different. In the first year I broke away from my old life, broken up with my high school boyfriend and finally felt I had moved on. In college, no one knew your name, unless you knew theirs in turn. Nobody was on a pedestal or more special than any other, but today was different. Alec somehow sensed I was feeling a bit odd, because he quickly wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek, causing me to smile. My mother gushed, and asked for us all to take a picture on her brand new camera she had bought just for the occasion. We all took turns to pose and smile, and when it was done we gathered round again.

"Your mother and I would like to take you to dinner tonight. You and Alec," my dad said, smiling at both of us.

"Thanks for the invite, dad," Chris said, feigning a look of hurt. Really, I knew he couldn't care less.

"Christopher, don't start now. I want to take your sister and her boyfriend for dinner. You can come next time."

Chris rolled his eyes, but when my dad had looked away he smiled at me, confirming his little act. Knowing my brother, he'd be out bar hopping again later tonight, celebrating with the other graduates as if he hadn't graduated some few years ago. He never seemed to age mentally.

While my father roped Alec into a conversation about whatever it was men liked to talk about, my mother began to fix my hair now that I had taken my cap off. She smiled at me when she was done, and I smiled back, not knowing what to say to her because I never really had. Mom had always had a better relationship with Chris, but in recent years she'd tried to make an effort with getting to know me more. I always felt like she was just grooming me for my wedding day, so she could take total control and live through me as if she was reliving her day all over again.

"I saw your friend earlier in the crowd watching," she said.

"Which friend?"

"Oh, that one you used to go to high school with. The smart boy who used to wear the awkward jeans. My, he has grown up, hasn't he? I barely recognised him!" I knew instantly that she was talking about Brian Johnson, and I quickly kissed her cheek before racing off into the crowds to go find him, knowing that he was probably looking for me and wouldn't leave until we'd found each other.

As I left I could hear Alec ask my dad where I was running too, slightly confused and probably worried, but I didn't have time to explain. Alec had never understood my friendship with Brian.

Even I had never understood it completely myself. We had met randomly at a detention, and spent the day together with a group of people we had nothing in common with. Somehow, though, we all grew to become friends over time. It took about a year for us all to accept it and put whatever cosmopolitan troubles we had on our mind behind us, but once we did we all became close. The summer before I started University was the best of my life because of it. Slowly Brian became one of my best friends, someone I could rely on and trust with all of my secrets, knowing that he would keep them as I kept his in return. I never had to worry about our relationship, because he was the one guy I spent so much time with that never made a pass or tried anything funny. Even Andy, our other friend, had tried something when he had been drinking one night. But that was before he and Allison finally admitted they were absolutely crazy for each other and moved in together, and now there was no one else for him.

Brian had come to Chicago with me, while the others stayed close to Shermer. It was just luck we both picked the same area, but I was always grateful for that, for many reasons. He was at medical school on a scholarship, studying to be a surgeon, while I wrote for English. We were completely different, but it always worked. And on his medical course, Brian had met a man called Alec who he introduced me to one night in his dorm room. He hadn't been picked by my parents and forced upon me, nor was he a rebellious relationship like my last one; he was just what I needed. Brian had honestly set me for life, so he always meant a lot to me, even on a day like today.

Finally, I found him in the crowd. He had grown a lot during our last year of high school and had grown even more since, making him easily spotted in a large group of people. However, I was still fairly short and slender, almost as small as I had been in high school thanks to a vigorous diet, so he never saw me coming as I ran at him and engulfed him into a hug. After a few moments he must have recognised my hair or something, because he wrapped his arms around me too and hugged me back just as tightly. When we separated, we were both grinning.

"Claire, I'm so happy for you!" he said, his straight teeth shown off by his wide smile.

"Aw, thanks Brian, I'm so happy you came today. I didn't think you would!"

"What, miss my best friend's graduation? I would never!"

"I just figured you'd have a ton of work to do instead for the summer. Alec does, but he leaves everything 'till the last minute so it kind of figured he'd have nothing else to do."

"No way, this is important to me. I even got a few good photos, look," he said, and produced a few polaroid frames of me on stage. A few were blurry, but most were recognisable. I thought I looked like a doofus, smiling too big and slightly red in the face, but at least nobody else would see these pictures apart from whoever Brian showed them to, which I hoped would be not too many people.

"Those are great, thank you," I said, pulling him in for another hug.

"I have a surprise for you, as a graduation present," he said, and I let go of him to look at him sternly.

"Brian, you know I don't like you spending money on me, you really didn't have to!"

"Oh, don't worry, Brian went cheap and forced us to pay instead," a voice said from behind me, causing me to jump and turn around immediately. I was met with Andy and Allison, both smiling and dressed very smartly for the occasion; Andy in a suit, and Allison in a black number that made her look mature beyond her years, despite her being a few months younger than me. My mouth dropped open out of sheer shock of the moment, the fact that they had gathered here for me. I thought I wasn't going to see them until I got home, but here they were, for one person's graduation. I threw my arms around both of them, bringing them into a hug to try and express how happy I was to see them, and Allison groaned as I held her tightly.

"I knew she'd hate the present, what a lousy idea, Brian!" Allison said, but she was still smiling, and so was I as I let go of them both.

"I can't believe you're both here! This is amazing!" I said. By now I had been smiling so much that I felt my cheeks beginning to ache.

"You thought we'd miss your graduation? Just because we didn't go to college, doesn't mean we'd miss out on all of its perks!" Andy said, wrapping his arm around Allison's waist and squeezing her gently.

"Yeah, where's the party at? Frat house?" said Allison, and Andy rolled his eyes, covering her mouth with one of his hands, but the smile remained on his face.

"I can't believe the Breakfast Club's all here again. Remember that? How dorky were we?" I said, looking around at all of them. Brian and Andy exchanged a look.

"Yeah, well, minus one member," Andy said.

"You mean Vernon? I'm so sad he missed it today, it would've been great to see his shining face in the crowd," I shot back, trying to avoid the elephant in the room that I could already tell was developing.

"I asked John to come, Claire… He said he couldn't get the time off work," Brian said, looking apologetic as if something like that would really upset me.

"I can vouch for him, our boss has been giving him overtime because he's always willing to take it. But he…er… wanted you to know he's happy for you," Andy added.

I nodded and pressed my lips together, giving them all a tight smile. It put a dampener on the mood to talk about John Bender, but I knew it was necessary and bound to happen every time we all met up. He made excuses to cancel on us every time, usually work related. He was always doing something or someone that meant he couldn't go out for dinner with us, or to the bar, or even just for a walk. I knew deep down it was because of me, and I didn't blame him. I didn't want to see him just as much as he didn't want to see me. We had dated each other for just over a year and loved each other more than I felt I could love a person, but it wasn't good enough and we'd ended on more than just a sour note. The last thing he had ever said to me was how much he hated me, and the last thing I had said in return was along those lines as well. We were both fiery people, and that wasn't always a good mix.

That didn't stop either of us from being friends with the same people, though, and I knew that he saw them all. Brian not as much, because he was in Chicago for school with me, but he worked at the same company as Andy and they regulated the same bar, the Romany. I had been there often myself, but never seen him. It wasn't like I looked out for him, but sometimes I longed for closure. I wanted to tell him that I had found someone else and I had moved on, that I could forgive him and he could forgive me and maybe we could be friends. But we had never been friends in the first place, and I doubted we'd be any good at that.

Despite it all, the years in between, sometimes I found myself still missing John Bender.

* * *

Dinner was a sombre occasion, as it always was when joined by my parents. We sat couple to couple, me facing my mother while Alec faced my dad. Tonight they had dressed well, more so than they usually did. My mom had a string of pearls and matching earrings that I knew were real, and my dad was in a polished suit that made him look refined and business-like. Nobody could relax themselves completely in a suit like that. They looked like a complete antitheses compared to Alec and me. I had thrown on one of his old blazers over trousers and a shirt, and he was wearing something similar in an effortless way that made us look like we were still confused at whether we were now adults or teenagers still.

When the waiter, a nice Italian male, had come to take our order, my dad had bought a bottle of house red and we were halfway through the glasses when the conversation began flowing.

"So, picture this, Claire is 16, this short shaggy hair and little pink slip on under a coat, and she's attempting to sneak back into the house through the kitchen window! The maid thought she was an introducer, we were all gathered to catch her, but when we turned on the lights she just gave us this deer in headlights look, like we had caught her showering!" My mother insisted on telling embarrassing stories, and I felt my face grow hotter as they went on. Under the table, Alec squeezed my leg as a reassurance.

"I'd gone to one of Stubby's parties, you'd let me go but locked me out. So I went in through the crack in the window. Back then I was small enough to fit through it," I added, taking another sip of my wine.

"You'd still be that small if you cut down on the carbs and wine, darling," my mother said, and my face fell slightly at the remark.

Immediately Alec changed the subject:

"See, I wish I had stories like that to tell. I never went to a party like that when I was a kid. I didn't! We didn't have them in my neighbourhood, and my nanny would never have let me out. I used to read a lot back then. I was definitely a virgin then too." He kept it lighthearted and I was thankful for that, because it made my dad laugh in reply.

"I was just as bad at her age, wasn't I, Howard? Of course, it was a different time then," my mom said, now on her second glass from the bottle.

"Your mother was quite a wild card when I met her. I think the year was 1966, and it definitely was a different time back then!" As my dad began another story, I found myself zoning out. It isn't until after we'd eaten and another bottle of wine was being passed around that I felt myself truly paying attention again. I noticed that Alec had moved his hand away from my leg and was fidgeting more than usual, and my mother was smiling like she knew a secret.

"How was your food, Claire?" Alec asked me.

"Really good, I'm so full now, though. I haven't eaten like that in weeks."

"Are the cheques we're sending you not enough, honey? If you need more, you just need to ask. I suppose it doesn't matter now that you're joining us back home soon, but you don't need to go hungry," said my dad, looking more serious now than he had all night. I quickly shook my head.

"No, no, Alec and I are fine. We get by."

"You're more than fine, sweetie," my mother said, "I've never met such a perfect match. You two are just…" she paused as her eyes began to water, and my dad took hold of her hand on the table. It was the most affectionate I had seen them for a long while, and it was throwing me off.

"Everyone… You're all acting weird tonight. What's going on? Is this because of my graduation?" I asked, trying to sound as casual as I could but not fully able to hide the questioning inquisition of my tone. Alec shifted in the chair next to me and turned to me.

"This is as good as any time…" he muttered, then looked up at me.

"Claire, I love you, you know that. I've loved you since your friend introduced us and you told me I was crazy for studying medicine for 5 plus years. I loved you when we went out on all of our dates and got to know each other, and I loved all of the time we spent together from that moment on. I've never been more thankful for doing something in my life than coming to Chicago, because it meant that I got to meet you. I want… I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Across the table, my mothers eyes were streaming with tears and even my dad looked like he was getting tearful. I looked back at Alec, trying to hide my confusion, but deep down I had no idea what was truly going on until he got up from his chair and got down on one knee right before me. From his pocket he pulled out a box, and he opened it to show me a beautiful ring. An engagement ring.

"I promise I will love you for the rest of my life, and I never want to love someone else. Claire, what I'm really trying to say, and God am I nervous to say it, but… Will you marry me?"

I heard my mother's sob before I heard anything else, and the whole room sounded like it was muted as if everyone was waiting with baited breath for my reply. I looked from my parents, back to Alec, and pictured what he would look like in a suit on our wedding day.

"Yes," I said, and he pulled me into his arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Allison.**

I always found that the best time to paint was during the night time. Specifically the last hour of darkness right before the sun comes up in the summer, when the streets outside finally quietened down and everyone was truly sleeping. You'd be surprised by how busy Shermer got in the dark, and living in the centre of the town was probably never a good idea, but I always found time to paint during those early hours of the morning.

It kept Andy up all night, even if he insisted it didn't. He'd usually get in from work at the office at the same time every day, have dinner then fall into bed like he had been worked to near death. It had never surprised me, because I knew he always tried his hardest at everything he did. He forced himself to do something until he physically couldn't anymore, and then it would finally be home time and he would get to sleep. That sort of life puts a strain on everything else. When he first started his job, he claimed to enjoy the productivity. He told me that I slacked too much with my own work, and if I would just force myself to sit at my easel until the painting was finished, I'd get a lot more done. Andy never really understood my art.

By the time I had settled at my easel for the evening, it was usually his time to go to bed. He once commented under his breath that I surely painted at that time on purpose to annoy him, but he never pressed the matter to avoid an argument. He walked on egg shells a lot now, because we didn't see each other enough to have an argument that we'd actually be able to resolve. So he'd just get into bed and let me have my creative time instead. Sometimes he'd watch me, look over at my face and laugh as I stuck my tongue out to concentrate, but more recently he'd roll to his side so he couldn't see me and I couldn't see him. That was probably what upset me the most. It got lonely in the night time, even with my art.

We left Chicago the same day as Claire's graduation, and Andy drove us back to Shermer in his beat up car that was the most we could afford. Neither of us had ever been used to the luxury of a beautiful vehicle, so we hadn't minded at first, but then it broke down for the first time and it had been a never ending ordeal ever since. Thankfully, it didn't cause any problems on our drive. We were actually in very high spirits the whole time. Maybe it was because we had seen an old friend, or the fact Andy had the weekend off work, but either way he held onto my hand and kissed it, and he smiled every so often at the road.

"What's got you so happy?" I asked.

"It's just a good day. Don't you feel it? I just feel like I have so much energy right now."

He looked over at me and grinned, letting go of my hand for a moment to turn the radio on and search for a good music station. The default setting was some cheesy pop station, and the song playing was the one by Rick Astley, a true disgrace to our generation. Andy and I both pulled faces at the same time as he quickly changed it.

"Prince! Play Prince!" I said.

"Baby, we always play Prince. Let's see what else is on here," he said, still twisting the dial to find something. Finally he hit a song that had just begun, its electric guitar riff ringing out of the speakers and filling the car I immediately knew it as Guns n' Roses, a band that I remember John liking a lot while we were in school. I had never understood the big deal. I definitely didn't think Andy liked them, but as the song shifted into its verse and the lead singer started screaming, Andy began to bang his head along, sending his sunglasses flying off his face and causing me to screech with laughter. Sometimes he made me feel like I was 17 all over again.

We got back to Shermer by night time and after parking the car we headed straight up to our apartment. It had been my idea to live on one of the highest floors, but it perhaps wasn't my brightest. I could definitely conform Andy's good mood, though, because half way up a flight of stairs he picked me up and threw me over his shoulders, carrying me all the way into our room and throwing me down gently onto the couch when we got in, pounding his chest with his fists like he was King Kong and I was the leggy blonde.

"You wild thing," I said, laughing up at him as he looked down at me.

"You ain't seen nothing yet, baby," he said back, grinning and then he practically jumped onto me, making the couch shift and both of us almost fall off. We were in fits of laughter, holding out stomachs to try and ease out the pain it had caused. Eventually the laughter died down as we both stayed laying there, and Andy moved himself so he was positioned above me and looking down at my face, cupping my cheek in his hand and stroking over it with his thumb, his rough skin against my soft skin.

"Can I help you?" I asked quietly, trying to keep a straight face. It was a lot easier now that Andy himself wasn't laughing and was instead looking at me seriously.

"No, just checking something out."

"Well, do you need any help with that?"

"No, it's good. You've got a bit of food on your face, that's what it was all along." My hands flew to cheeks as I tried to cover whatever remnants of lunch I had gotten over me, and he grinned as he tried to move my hands. "Look, I'll get it." He kissed me on my forehead, and as he peeled my hands away he started kissing down my face, on each closed eyelid and on the tip of my nose, until he reached my lips and I kissed him back.

"I didn't really have any food on my face, did I?" I asked when we broke apart.

"Actually you did, I'm just saving it for later tonight."

"Don't be an ass, Andy!" I playfully hit his shoulder and he laughed in reply, before leaning back in to kiss me again.

* * *

At 10pm, Andy and I had agreed to meet John at the Romany for drinks. The bar was in the town centre, located along a walk with various restaurants and cafes, but it stood out the most. We had first started frequenting it when Andy and John had joined the same company. We were fresh out of high school and looking for somewhere fun to go, and one night after work Andy and John had been in town and decided to stop in the Romany for a quick drink. That first year they seemed to visit it almost every night, becoming regulars and securing us a permanent table in the middle of the room, a half-way distance from the bar and the stage. At one point Andy had even talked about me getting a job there, but I couldn't bring myself to be tied down like that. I would've had to work long hours in the night time and I would barely get to paint my pictures; it would be utterly miserable.

The bar hadn't changed since we first starting visiting it. Its manager, Mr. Spicer, didn't believe too much in change, and wanted to live in the spirit of the '80s forever. He once told me that us kids coming in all the time made him feel young again, but I would hardly call us kids anymore. And with the year being '89 and our regular visits becoming a rarity, it seemed that change was very much evident in everyone apart from the building itself.

We walked straight into the room and sat at our usual table, Andy making sure I was seated before going to get us drinks. John was always late, even if he'd been the one to ask us to meet. It was something we'd grown accustomed to over the years, but I wasn't so sure everyone else had. At work I often wondered what his boss thought of his lack of motivation and time keeping skills, but he'd kept the same job since he dropped out of high school when we were still 17 and Andy always told me he was loved around the office, like he was a different person to the boy we once knew years ago. But John had always been good to us. When we graduated from Shermer, he'd helped Andy get an internship over the summer to save more money up for college, and when Andy turned around and decided he didn't want to go anymore and he was quitting sports, John had supported him even if I was a bit pissed off at the whole ordeal. Eventually he even gave Andy a full job at the business.

When Andy returned back with our drinks, he also had John in tow, and I stood to give him a hug. He was still in his work uniform, a pale blue suit with his long hair slicked back, but he had removed his tie and undone his button, so if anyone didn't know any better he would just look like a standard prep.

"Good to see you!" I said, over the noise of the surrounding crowd already forming ready for Friday night drinking and music. The air was becoming smoky from the lit cigarettes around the room and the chatter meant you always had to shout, but we had all gotten used to that over time. John nodded and took a seat, taking a beer from Andy and passing me over my simple vodka tonic, something the guys always said was sissy of me to drink.

"Sorry for the short notice, I just couldn't stick sitting around in the office or at home alone tonight. I'm so fucking bored of work this week and it's only Friday!" John said.

"Yeah, well, I'd say I feel you, man, but I got the weekend to myself and the lady friend over here," Andy said, grinning at John and taking a swig from his beard. John faked taking a swing at Andy and we all laughed at the gesture.

"You should be thankful to have me there," John pointed his finger at us, "I saved both of your asses this weekend. I should be the one getting the break!"

"I think sometimes they forget we're the same age, you know? You've worked there longer, I think they forget you're 22 and should have a life."

"Well, I guess it's lucky for them I don't have one outside of you two shits and Brian, isn't it?" John said, always so tongue in cheek.

"You're married to the job."

"Well, my love life's not exactly taking off anywhere, so I gotta get my rides somewhere." John reached into the pocket of his suit and produced a packet of 20 cigarettes. The carton was already half empty. He put one into his mouth and put the cigarettes away again as he searched for his lighter. I felt Andy looking over at me, so I looked back, and we both knew we would have to address where we had been earlier today, no matter how much John tried to avoid it.

"So it was alright in the office today then?" Andy asked, resting his arm across the back of my chair and throwing back another swig from his bottle.

"No, everyone was a wreck because you were't there. There was anarchy and a fire broke out at one point. You gotta come in tomorrow, they don't know what to do."

I laughed, and Andy shook his head.

"Good to know I'm valued there, at least. Makes a change from the great, idolised John Bender being the talk of the office."

"The people love me, I can't help it," said John as he breathed out a cloud of smoke from his cigarette.

"I'm feeling pretty lucky I have my boyfriend back for the weekend. I know he thinks you're married to the office, but sometimes I feel like he's having an affair with it," I said, elbowing Andy gently in the side and grinning.

"You two kids don't go too crazy, alright? Take it from your uncle Jonny."

"I think I'm just gonna paint a bit, make some dinner for us," I said, finishing my drink.

"Geez, Allison, slow it down. That sounds like way too much fun for me!" John said, and I glared at him in response.

"We…er…had fun today, though. Me and Al, at Claire's thing in Chicago," Andy finally said. I watched John's face for a response, but he was watching his cigarette as he flicked off the end, and when he looked back up he didn't look phased by what he had just heard. Either he was good at acting, or he really didn't care.

"Her graduation," I joined in with Andy, "It was a really great service, but she looked so funny with that stupid hat on. Even so, she's the first of all of us to graduate. The weather was great and she was so happy to see all of us."

"Well, lucky I didn't go then, isn't it? Wouldn't want to spoil the occasion."

"You wouldn't have spoiled it. I think she would've liked to see you."

John paused and sighed, rubbing his temple with one of his fingers.

"I don't get what it is with all of you insisting that I see her again. We don't speak anymore for a reason, a very good reason. Us communicating again… It would be a bad fucking idea."

"Hey, Brian invited you, and it's not like we tried to shove you into a room together and get you to play 7 minutes in heaven. We are adults now, John, we should act like them," Andy said, placing his bottle down on the table in a slightly forceful manner that made me jump.

"You stay in contact with your exes, Andy? How about you, Allison?"

"We don't have exes," I said.

"Exactly. You don't know what it's like to have one that you can't avoid hearing about. I told you I was happy that she graduated and I'm sure her parents are thrilled, but I don't want to see her, I don't want to speak to her. I just want to live without Claire Standish so can I at least have that one fucking thing?"

I felt Andy tense next to me, and he and John spent a moment staring at each other, their faces unreadable. I wanted to argue against John, tell him he was being unreasonable because really, with Claire's return to Shermer in the coming week, we just wanted to be able to hang out like a group again, not separating depending on who we decided to see. It made our social lives extremely difficult.

Andy was determined not to fight John on this, not tonight at least, so he looked away from him first and then John followed. I shook my head at both of them, standing up from the table.

"I'm gonna go get another drink, and then I'm gonna dance. And you're coming with me," I said, as I took Andy's hand and dragged him to a standing position. John laughed at the look on Andy's face, which was a grimace, but as I began to walk away Andy smiled at me and thanked me for taking his mind off what had just happened. Sometimes I wished he still played sports competitively, because it definitely helped him with his issues with his temper.

As we distanced ourselves further from John at our table, I found myself looking back at him and feeling sad for the situation. John and Claire were supposed to be together for as long as our friendships lasted, like Andy and me. Perhaps even forever. It was never supposed to be this way; Claire with Alec and John miserably alone.

Andy pushed us through a group of people and I lost sight of John eventually, but that didn't stop me thinking about him for the rest of the evening.


	3. Chapter 3

**Brian.**

When Claire and Alec were scheduled to return home to Shermer, they asked me if I wanted a lift. Claire had told me that her mother had offered to take them home, but they had things they wanted to bring with them and it would take up too much space in her father's cadillac, and they probably wouldn't be able to fit themselves in. Alec had a nice car himself that was a lot more spacious and would fit everything they needed to bring back, including me, so I thanked them for the offer, and for their generosity, and accepted.

On the Wednesday following Claire's graduation, we hit the road and left Chicago for the summer. I sat in the back, already beginning my essay for summer work, while Claire and Alec spoke quietly in the front. They always seemed to be talking in hushed tones recently, as if they had a secret they didn't want me to know, which was odd for Claire. When we had first become friends she'd taken a while to come around to liking me, but when she did she eventually began to talk to me about everything that was troubling her. I think I knew more about her than her own parents did.

"Do you guys have plans tonight when we get home?" I asked, closing my binder and dismissing my school work for now.

"I don't think so. I guess we'll just try to get settled in at my old house," Claire said.

"Well, I figured we could go out for a drink maybe. A celebration. I'll pay."

"Brian, you don't have to do that, though it's very kind of you…"

"Come on, Claire, let me just do this one thing. Besides, I'd do anything to get away from my mother, even just for the night."

"You're not staying at your house, are you?" she asked, and I nodded. She shifted in her chair to turn around to face me in the back.

"Brian, that's terrible!"

I responded by giving her a grim look.

"What's wrong with that?" Alec asked, not taking his eyes off of the road, though I could tell he wanted to look at us. Claire bit her lip, unsure of what to say to him, because she knew it wasn't her place to say it.

"Nothing, I just don't get on with my parents too much."

"His mother is the devil reincarnated," Claire muttered, and I surprised myself by snorting at the remark.

"Don't say things like that," said Alec.

"No, Claire's right," I said, "She always has been. She's very much a… a pusher."

"Brian, she pushed you to the point of contemplating suicide, I think that's worse than just being a pusher."

"You're kidding?" said Alec. I sighed.

"Yeah, when I was 16. I got an F so I decided I wanted to kill myself. The gun went off early in my locker and I got a detention, so I met Claire."

"Our Claire, in detention?" Alec smiled and placed his hand on Claire's knee.

"We became friends after that, a whole group of us that were in for whatever reasons. Looking back now, it's actually pretty funny."

"He got a detention because he set a flare gun off in his locker," Claire told Alec, beginning to join me in laughing. Alec just looked slightly confused.

"You're alright now though, right, Brian? I always thought you seemed like a happy guy."

"Oh, don't worry about me, I'm fine. I love school now. I think it's because I don't have my mom nagging at me every night to do stuff. I can actually be free."

"Which is exactly why I won't let you stay in that house, Brian, you'll be miserable," Claire began, "I absolutely insist you stay with us, we have a spare room in our house and it'd be so fun to have you stay over officially."

"Now, Claire, I think we should discuss this before you make any rash decisions…" Alec said, a slight sternness in his tone. Claire chose to ignore him.

"What do you say, Brian? We'll go out to drinks if you stay the night at my house. My parents won't mind. My mother always loved you! Please say yes, you must."

I smiled at Claire, but felt Alec watching the both of us through the rear view mirror. I felt out of place. I didn't want to be an awkward tag along, and I sensed Alec didn't want me there either. I always felt like he'd tolerated me, but never truly got on with me. When we met in our class we had been paired up by our professor, not by choice, and whenever we hung out it was because we absolutely had to. It was just luck when he had met Claire in my dorm room; she was entering as he was leaving. Somehow they became an item, but it never made Alec like me any more. I always had a nagging feeling he was insecure of Claire's relationship with me, but whenever I thought that I told myself I was being stupid. Why would a guy like Alec be jealous of someone like me?

"I'll think about it. Thanks for the offer," I said. Claire smiled at me and turned back around, beginning another conversation and not pressing the issue, which I was thankful for. Suddenly the drive to Shermer seemed far too long.

* * *

"I don't know why I couldn't just drive here, the price is already extortionate," Alec said to me in the back of the cab.

That night, I shared a taxi into town with Claire and Alec, despite their protests to just let Alec drive. I had told them there was no parking, but really I knew that they would just leave early and wouldn't drink if I let them do what they had wanted. So instead we had called a cab, and were already on route.

"It's easier this way, Alec, believe me," I said, and wanted it to be left at that. Knowing Claire, it wouldn't.

"I really don't want to stay too long out, I have things to do, things to prepare. I don't like the idea of going home to my parent's house tonight reeking of smoke and alcohol," she said.

The cab stopped before anyone could say anything else, so to prevent any further protests from the unhappy pair in the back, I paid the driver and got out. As they both left the vehicle, they reached for their own money to pay me back, but I waved it off and waited for the driver to go before I set off walking, forcing them both to follow me.

"We're gonna have a good time. We're going to the Romany. Andy and Allison told me they'd meet us there, so it'll be fun."

"Like a Shermer reunion," said Claire. I didn't turn back to see her, but I could tell she was smiling at the thought. I nodded, but still refused to look back, because I knew too well that going to the Romany meant the chances of bumping into John Bender were high. I hadn't seen him in months, so I couldn't predict it myself, but Andy had told me on the phone that he would bring him along after work. It sounded devious and almost evil to do it to Claire, but at least this way neither of them could back out of the eminent meeting. It had to be done, really.

I led them into the Romany, though Claire knew it just as well as I did, having been here many times with all of us before she got too involved with her life with her boyfriend. The crowds were busy tonight because there was live music later on, and a thick cloud of smoke was already present in the room.

"Come on, usual table," I told her, and she followed me promptly towards the centre of the room where Andy and Allison were already sat. Next to them sat John, but Claire spotted him before I did.

"What the fuck?" she muttered under her breath, and Alec snapped his head to look at her, because she never seemed to swear like that anymore. Not since meeting him, at least. I took a seat, greeting my friends, and showed Claire and Alec their seats before Claire could make a break and leave. I doubted Alec even knew the existence of John in Claire's life, because he sat down effortlessly and shook hands with Andy and greeted Allison, then extended his hand to John to introduce himself.

John was sat, staring at Claire with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth like he'd just seen a ghost, completely ignoring Alec's hand. Allison glared at him and presumably kicked him under the table, because he snapped to it immediately and looked around at all of us with wide eyes. Finally, Claire took her seat directly across from John, her smile completely gone from her paling face.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Alec. You are?" Alec said to John, him being the only member of our group he hadn't met yet. John looked over at him, finally taking a puff from his cigarette.

"I'm John."

Alec took his hand back, nodded and smiled, then looked towards Claire who hadn't moved since she'd sat down. He placed his arm around the back of her chair, like Andy had done to Allison's chair, thinking nothing of it. I had to break the tension.

"Work alright, Andy?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's fine. Bender here is still the star of our floor, but I'd like to think I'm doing well. Isn't that right, John?" He nudged John in the arm, and instead of receiving the usual snide retort from John, he just looked at him and took another drag.

"We rode back from Chicago today," I said.

"How was it?" said Allison.

"It was fine, the roads were surprisingly alright. But I told these guys that we had to go for a drink. They wanted to be completely boring and just go straight home."

"Speaking of drinks," said Andy, "I'll buy. Who wants what?"

"I'll have a beer, thanks," Alec said, and Andy nodded.

"Water for me," said Claire. Her voice was quiet and hard to hear over the noise of the other people, but John definitely heard her because he began to laugh to himself. Claire looked at him, hurt evident on her face, but he didn't look back at her. Andy looked at me and pointed to his own beer, as if to ask if I wanted one as well. I nodded, and he kissed Allison on the forehead before getting up and leaving for the bar.

"So…" Alec began, "I haven't met you before now, John. What line of work are you in?"

"Sales," he replied through gritted teeth, making it sound like he almost spat at Alec in reply. He didn't notice.

"How's business?"

"Andy works for the same company as John, but John has been there longer so he's a bit higher up. They're behind the scenes of the company, working in the offices. John is really great…" Allison spoke for him.

"Thank you, Allison," was all John said in reply for her, his tone not lifting.

"And how do you know Claire and everyone else?"

All of us turned to look to John, genuinely curious for his answer to such a question. It was a loaded question, and I knew whatever he said would probably result in someone getting upset later on into the night. I just hoped to God it wasn't Claire, though I suspected that was too late.

"High school. Me and Claire…" John began, stopping himself before he carried on. Alec raised his eyebrow and sat forward, as if urging him to go on, but it was Claire who spoke and caused us all to snap our heads around to look at her.

"John and I used to date before I met you," she said, her gaze fixated on the table.

"That's right, Alec, I'm Claire's ex-boyfriend." John smiled at him, then blew out another puff of smoke, finally putting out the cigarette he'd been smoking since we arrived.

"Oh. That's… Good for you," Alec said, clearly at a loss for words. I watched him for a moment as he looked at Claire, wanting her to look at him for some sort of answer, but she never did. Andy returned with a tray of drinks before anyone could say anything else.

"Beer for you, one for you, one for you, water for Claire, one for you and one for me," he said as he handed out the drinks to their respective people. He sat back down and held Allison's hand, and John lit up another cigarette.

"So, how did you two lovebirds meet?" John asked, flicking out the match he'd used to light his smoke and looking from Claire to Alec.

"Through Brian," Alec said.

"Oh, good ol' Bri' here? Well, Brian, aren't you the match maker?" he said, hitting me on the back harder than what could be classed as comfortable. I smiled at him, feeling awkward and uncomfortable in the situation. "And I must say, Claire, that your hair has grown a great deal since moving to Chicago. You no longer look like a little boy anymore!"

Claire gasped and Alec shifted in his seat fast, as if going to confront John, who held his hands up immediately.

"Hey, I'm just joking. No harm in that."

Claire didn't say anything, and went to drink from her glass of water. I watched John as he in turn watched her, and frowned when I saw his eyes go wide again as if he'd seen something on her.

"Claire, that's a nice ring on your finger. Did daddy buy that for you, or was it your boyfriend here?" John asked, leaning forward towards her. Claire smacked her drink down on the table and immediately hid her hand from everyone before they could look. Even I hadn't noticed a detail as fine as that, and I had spent the past few days with Claire in Chicago. Alec ignored Claire's sudden secrecy and took her hand in his own, smiling around at all of us.

"I guess this is a good a time to tell your friends while they're here, don't you, Claire?"

"Yeah," she said, sitting up straighter in her chair and plastering a smile on her face.

"Last Friday, I took Claire out to dinner with her family and I asked her to marry me. She said yes!" It was clear Alec was ecstatic, and even Claire smiled genuinely when the news was out. I found myself grinning at them and Andy and Allison immediately wished them their congratulations, with Allison asking to see the ring. John didn't say anything.

"Oh, it's so beautiful, look at that Andy. That's perfect," Allison said, admiring the glint of the diamonds in the engagement ring under the glow of the bar lights above our heads.

"I'm really happy for you, Claire," Andy said, nodding as he glanced at the ring and then back at the couple.

"Yeah, that's really great news, guys. Congratulations," I said when it was my turn to reply to the statement.

"All of you just shut the fuck up," John suddenly said, getting up from the table and causing it to shift forward, making Claire's drink spill a few drops from its side and most of us jump. Before any of us could respond, John had grabbed his coat and was leaving, and Claire had put her head in her hands, muttering to Alec about how unreasonable and how much of an ass John was.

"I'm sorry, Claire, Alec. I'll go see what his problem is," I said, excusing myself from the table in a much politer way than John Bender probably ever had done in his life.

* * *

I found John on the curb just outside the Romany, sat with his head in his hands and his cigarette still lit.

"John!" He snapped his head around as soon as he heard his name, and his nostrils flared and eyes widened upon seeing me.

"What?"

"What you did back there was really unreasonable and just horrible of you."

"Oh, so you've come to give me a good telling off now, have you? Tough guy Brian is here!"

"John, why are you such an idiot all the time?"

"Oh, I'm the idiot?" He finally stood, walking right up to me, squaring up to me as he continued to yell at me in the middle of the sidewalk, "Personally, I think, you're the idiot!" He dug his finger into my chest and I moved away to rub at the spot. He just laughed.

"Yes, you're the idiot. You didn't have to act like that towards Claire, you could at least be civil!" I shouted back.

"I'm so sorry, Bri, but if you weren't so in love with her and didn't have your head so far up your own ass, you would see what really was going on, and maybe understand for a second how I feel!"

"I'm not in love with Claire!"

"That's not the fucking point! Do you not know what happened between us, or do you not care? Do you live in some fantasy world where everything can be resolved with a few talks and a kiss and make up? Claire and I broke up, 3 years ago! I don't know why you keep forcing the fucking subject like you want us to get back together, because it's never going to happen, especially not now!" He paused to take a drag from his cigarette, then carried on. "News flash, Brian, we're not in Shermer public high school anymore. She lives like a princess in fucking Chicago, and I'm still here, working my ass off to make something for myself. Things have changed! You're the only person in that room who hasn't realised that yet, so get a fucking life and move on, and stop trying to play fairy godmother for a girl you idolise, when really she's so far from perfect that she drove me insane."

I took a deep breath and pursed my lips as I looked back at him. His face had grown red from yelling so much and he was short of breath.

"I'm sorry I just try to help, John, but you don't exactly make things easier for yourself. You haven't had a girlfriend since her, and maybe I just wanted to give you some sort of closure to show that she's moved on while you're still standing there, waiting. I just… I just try to be a good friend to all of you, but it's hard with this going on. I know it's not high school, but you can't blame me for wishing it still was. Things were easier then."

John turned away from me and walked back towards the curb, then walked over to a nearby trash can and kicked a piece of litter lying on the floor, taking his anger out on the curb by stamping on it repeatedly.

"I'm going back inside," I said. He just stared at the trash on the floor without moving.

As I headed for the door, he finally looked up.

"Goodnight, Brian," he said, but I didn't turn back around to face him, deciding to just leave him alone for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Andy.**

After John stormed off that night, it didn't take too long for the rest of us to fake yawns or claim to have some important business in the morning as excuses to leave. We all separated just an hour later. I waved Brian, Claire and Alec off as they all got a cab together, and then began walking down the street towards the apartment with Allison. It was always a blessing to live so close to the Romany, especially on warm summer nights when we weren't freezing our asses off during the entire walk. Allison found my hand under the long sleeve of my jacket and I squeezed it as a reassurance.

"Some night," she said, and I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, it was definitely something."

"A mess is what it was."

"Well, it had to happen at some point, didn't it?"

"Yeah, better sooner than later," she sad.

"I just can't believe Claire is marrying that Alec guy."

"You don't like him? I thought he was nice."

"No, he's a nice guy. I just always saw her and John together. Since high school. I kept thinking…"

"That they'd get back together?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Me too," she agreed.

We got to the apartment and climbed the stairs, though this time I couldn't muster the energy to carry her in my arms like I had a few nights before. It made me angry every time I reached the top and felt myself gasping for breath, because when I was younger I would've been able to reach the top in no time, and still feel completely fine. When we walked into our room, she threw herself onto the couch and lounged across it, releasing her short hair from its scrunchie and shaking it so it fell in the way I'd always liked. She'd finally decided to grow her fringe out after years of coaxing, so now it fell away from her face and exposed her features well, making her look more open and beautiful. I smiled as I watched her, then slipped into the kitchen to get us drinks from the fridge. I got out two beers, opened them quickly, and walked back into the lounge, leaning against the door way as I watched her still play around with her clothes and hair to make herself more comfortable now that we were home. Eventually she turned to me, catching me watching her, and grinned.

"That for me?" she asked, reaching out for one of the beers.

"The finest of refreshments for the lady." I handed it to her and she took a sip immediately. She let out an 'ah' as she pulled the bottle away from her mouth, and inspected it closely.

"Dollar beer! This stuff hits it just right."

I settled down on the couch next to her after she made some room for me, and after we'd placed our bottles on the table, she cuddled up into my body. I instinctively wrapped my arm around her. It was rare nowadays that we got time like this to ourselves, but I had finished work early today and I wasn't planning on going to bed yet so I knew to take advantage of the moment. She felt warm in my arms and her hair smelt like peppermint as I leaned down to kiss her.

"Andy," she said softly, moving her lips away from mine so I would look at her. "Remember I applied to that art college a few months ago? The one that offered the night classes, so I could go along in the evenings and practice my painting?"

"Yeah?"

"They phoned today while you were at work." She was smiling widely at me, and I couldn't help but smile right back without even knowing the outcome of the phone call.

"And?"

"They offered me a place on their summer course!"

My smile broke out into a grin and I swept up the rest of her body into my arms as I hugged her, kissing her again to show how happy I was for her. She pulled away, her hands still in my hair and on my cheek.

"But it's 3 nights a week for the next 3 months. It means that some nights when you get home from work, I'd be just heading out. I wasn't sure what to tell them, so I said I would call back by Friday and let them know if I accept the offer or not. I want to take it, but I'd understand if you'd rather I didn't, I know it's tough already…"

"Al, take the course. It's what you want to do, so do it. I'm not going to stop you from doing something you love."

She grinned at me again and then this time she was the one that wrapped me up in her arms tightly.

As we hugged, I couldn't help but think of the future for us. It was a morbid thought and perhaps slightly inappropriate with the backdrop of my friend's own troubles, but I had completely forgotten about that for the moment. All I could think about was coming home in the evening and not having Allison there, even just for a few minutes before we headed to bed. I would miss finding her sat at her easel every night, working on pictures that she never let me see until she had finished. So far I had only seen 3, but I remained excited for the next time I would be able to see one. Maybe with classes she'd work quicker, improve and start to take off somewhere. It really could be a beginning for her, but the selfish side of me didn't want her to be away from me at night. I didn't want to hear her coming in late, knowing she'd been out alone in the streets. I worried for the separation it might even cause. But when Allison pulled away and she was still smiling at me, it made the worries wash away. She was happy, and that was important to me.

"I love you," I told her, and I meant it.

I felt like I had loved her since the day we met at detention, when she surprised me with her blunt nature and understanding. I never did anything about it, though. We kissed, and then pretended it never happened. I would see her around school and we would look at each other, but neither of us would initiate anything. I wouldn't speak to her, and she wouldn't speak to me. At that time, we felt like we were from completely different worlds. As another year passed and we were close to graduating, I finally figured out which locker was hers and I slipped a note in it for her to meet me under the bleachers during the next lunch time. I never thought she'd show, and she didn't until the last 5 minutes of the lunch period. That was our second kiss. Our third was in my car when I offered her a ride home. After that the kisses started to blur together, but I knew I loved her every time I kissed her and when I was with her. At our high school graduation, we held hands in front of everyone, but no one noticed. That was when my dad hated me for changing my mind about college and decided not to go, and my friends were all leaving. I asked her to live with me on the last day of the summer, and she said yes. We never were official, no one asked the other out, but we knew we had belonged together since we had first met.

"I love you, too," she said. I kissed her again, wrapping my arms around her waist and picking her up from the couch, holding onto her as I walked us towards our bed. She moved her hands to unbutton my shirt in a messy fashion that I knew would crinkle the fabric if she wasn't too careful. I placed her down on the bed, then stopped her hands.

"This is my work shirt," I said, beginning to unbutton it myself as I moved away from her.

"So?" she asked, frowning and removing her own shirt.

"So, I don't want it to get ruined. I have to wear it tomorrow."

"A little grime won't ruin it."

"I just don't want to get it dirty, Allison."

"Okay." She sighed and crossed her legs, watching me as I placed my shirt on the back of a chair neatly so as not to mess it up. I had to keep up appearances in the office, and a wrinkled shirt was a sure fire way for the older men to judge me. When that was done, I walked back over to the bed, standing over her as I leaned in to kiss her, holding her by her back. My hands made their way to her bra, but she stopped me just as they were moving under the band.

"I'm tired now, Andy." She moved her head away from mine, leaving mine still in place, and skirted from under beneath me, the bed shifting as she got up from it.

"Is this because of my shirt? I'm sorry." I turned and sat facing her as she removed her skirt and then her tights.

"No, it's because I'm tired and I want to go to bed."

"You get to sleep in in the morning, I have to go to work! I'm the one who should be tired!"

She had been pulling on one of my old pyjama shirts but as I spoke she stopped and stared at me.

"I forgot that no one in the world can be tired, only Andy Clarke."

"Don't be like that. I'm sorry. I just don't like it when you do this."

"Do what?" She was now slipping the bottoms on, and walking around to her side of our double bed. I turned to keep facing her as she moved.

"Change your mind right before we get anywhere! I try to initiate something and every time you tell me 'not tonight' or 'I'm too tired.' I don't understand."

"I'm not fighting with you tonight, Andy, I want to go to bed."

"Fine."

I had so much more to say, but I held it back and chose not to let us fight over something so stupid when we already had so little time together as it was. So we both settled into the bed after we had both gotten ready and I shut off the light. I turned my back towards Allison, and closed my eyes to force sleep to come.

I wasn't sure how long after I'd turned off the lights that I felt Allison's arms wrap around my waist and her lips press kisses against my back. I felt myself instantly relax, not realising I had been so tense moments before.

"Andy, I think you should get back into sports again," she said.

"I do, too. I just don't have any time."

"So make time. You told me earlier to do what I love, so you have to do what you love, too."

I turned my body around so I was laying on my back with her at my side.

"You're right. I'm sorry I get so angry," I said.

"Don't worry about it, you basket case."

"Hey, I thought that was you."

I couldn't see her in the dark of our room but I could tell she was smiling, and then we kissed once more before we finally settled down to go to sleep.

* * *

The next morning I woke up to my alarm with Allison still wrapped around me in a mess of bed sheets and arms. She groaned as I began to untangle myself, making to get up as well but I told her to stay and kissed her forehead as I left.

I got ready in the same routine as I did every morning. I made myself a coffee, then jumped in the shower, dressing while my hair was still wet and leaving with my briefcase just as it had finished drying. I thought to leave Allison a note on the bed to apologise again for my outburst last night, but I never had time to stop to think before work, so I went out on my business like it was any other day. I drove my car into the downtown work estate of Shermer and parked it in a parking lot belonging to the building I worked in. Every time I saw it, I felt like I was looking at the rest of my life.

I smiled at the receptionist as I passed her, and went into the elevator with a few of my co-workers, all chatting about what they had done last night with their families and their plans for the weekend. When I got off on my floor I headed straight for my cubicle, lingering for a moment to see if John was in his, but decided to talk to him during my lunch break instead of confronting him about last night right then.

On my desk I kept a picture of Allison and I when we were 18 and 19, sitting at our table in the Romany with drinks in our hands and smiles on our faces. I smiled back at Allison's face, before turning on my computer and waiting for it to start up to begin my work.

During the day, a few people passed by where I was working, but nobody ever stopped to talk. I only knew a few of the people on my floor, but none enough to talk with in depth. I knew I would have to branch out at some point, but to them I was still the youngest and one of the newest on board, so they stuck to their crowds of older friends. Most of them knew John well, getting on with him greatly. It had surprised me when I first joined that his people skills were so great, because I always remembered him as the delinquent in high school who dropped out at 17 and picked on our principle until he practically went crazy.

When my lunch break began I took a bite of my packed sandwich and then decided I wasn't hungry anymore. I stood up from my chair and poked my head out of my cubicle, now able to see down the halls of the floor, and look to see if I could find John anywhere. He was at his desk talking to someone on the phone, so I quickly shut my briefcase and left it as I headed over to see him. We really had to talk.

When I reached him, he looked up at me in acknowledgement and held his finger up while he finished the phone call. When he put the phone down, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

"Nice phone call?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got put through from customer service. Wanted me to calm someone down because I guess they think I'm good at that." We both smiled, and I walked further into his cubicle to lean against the wall while he turned to look at me.

"I'm sorry about…" I began.

"If you came to apologise about last night, don't. I don't want to talk about it."

"I knew she was coming, I can't lie about that. I didn't know she would bring Alec, but I guess since they're engaged now of course he'd come alone as well."

"I don't care about that."

"It kind of seems like you do."

"Yeah, well, I don't," he said, wanting to dismiss the subject.

"I get that you don't like to talk about it, but surely you have to be feeling something."

"Nope, nothing." He turned back to his desk and opened his drawer, taking out a file and opening it to begin sorting through the papers it contained.

"It's just you've never been with someone else since her."

"What?" He turned back to look at me.

"She's dated since you. She's got committed since you. You haven't."

"Sorry, Andy, but you don't know shit about my love life."

"I know that I've never met another girl that you've been with."

"Yeah, that's because I don't want to settle down. Being with her made me realise that, so get off my case and let's drop the subject."

"John, you have to get over her at some point."

"I am fucking over her, Andy, don't play that," he said, his words sounding more angry by the minute. I held my hands up in defence.

"I don't want to fight with you, man. I'm just trying to help. I think at least her getting married will offer some sort of end to whatever you're feeling."

"I'm sure you'd all love that so much. But what if I don't feel anything, huh?"

"Last night's display sure showed that."

John just shook his head, his gelled down hair staying in place.

"Can we just end the subject of Claire, please?" he said, "I think it'd help if people would stop talking to me about her."

"Fine. But knowing her and knowing Brian, you'll be invited to all of her shit now. Her parents will probably throw elaborate banquets to celebrate, and you'll be invited."

"Who's to say I'll even show?"

"No one. No one would expect you to show, so knowing you, you probably will."

John laughed quietly, then went back to his paper.

"How are you and the little misses, anyway? Wedding bells ringing for you anytime soon?" he asked, as if he really cared about it.

"Probably not. She's starting evening art classes soon so I doubt I'll see her much. But it's what makes her happy. She's always been that troubled artist type."

"And you are her muse, my friend," he said, looking up at me with his cocky smile on his face.

Before we could carry on, a man I recognised as Eric from a few cubicles down from me knocked on the walls of John's cubicle and smiled in at both of us.

"Sorry to interrupt you during your lunch breaks, but Andy, your phone has been ringing for the past few minutes and I think it's probably important," he said. I stood up from the wall immediately and nodded, making my way to leave. As I walked out, John spoke again.

"Romany after work tonight?"

"Of course," I said, then left.

When I got back to my desk I picked the phone up before I could even sit down, not wanting it to ring a moment longer. I was always conscious of the things I did in the office, and annoying everyone around me with the ringing phone wasn't something I liked the idea of.

"Hello, you've reached Andrew Clarke at Sander's Sales co. How may I help you?" I said, trying to bring a cheerful tone to my voice despite phone calls ranking as one of my least favourite things in the world.

"Andy, hey! It's Alec, Claire's fiancé."

"Oh, hey. What can I do for you?"

"I hope you don't mind that I got your work number, Claire gave it to me because she said you'd probably be working."

"Not at all."

"I figured you'd be able to help me out. I'm in Shermer for the rest of the summer and I was wondering if you might be able to secure me some sort of internship at the company? I hate to sit around doing nothing, and I think it would be good to get some work experience while I'm not at school. It'd only be for the summer, until I go back to Chicago in the fall, but it's alright if it's not possible…"

"Don't worry about it, man, I'll definitely see what I can do for you. We have a couple of interns every summer so I'm sure there'll be a place for you here. As long as you don't mind working in close quarters with the likes of me and John."

Alec chuckled down the phone receiver.

"Not at all," he said, "It'd be nice to get to know Claire's friends a bit more. And about last night, I hope John is alright with everything. I wasn't expecting an outburst like that, Claire was very shaken by it all."

"Nah, John's like that all the time. Don't worry too much about him, he doesn't bite too hard. Look, I have to go now because my break's almost over, but I'll let you know by the end of the week if I can get you some sort of placement. If you could just give me a number to reach you on…"

He gave me Claire's private number, which I already knew thanks to Allison, but I wrote it down anyway under his name and then we said goodbye. When I put the phone down, I stared down at the numbers on the paper, knowing deep down that this could be a bad idea. John had a good reputation at the company, and I liked to call us close friends, but by helping out Alec I would be scrutinising with the enemy. It was no secret to anyone but John that he still loved Claire Standish, and I wasn't so sure I believed he could keep up his work persona with someone like that working in the same building as him. Even so, if I didn't help Alec out, I'd never hear the end of it from Claire, and I could even screw up the poor guy's credentials for the future. My eyes looked across my desk to the picture of Allison and me again, and I smiled knowing that if she were here, she'd know exactly what to do and what to say. But unfortunately she wasn't, so the decision was up to me, and I'd never been too good at making well thought out decisions.


	5. Chapter 5

**John.**

It was a few weeks into the summer and to celebrate my 5 years at the company, I had gone out drinking last night with the guys. We'd gone to one of the newer bars in Shermer to begin with, starting with beers and rowdy company, but before too long Andy and I had ended up with a few people in the Romany at our usual table. It was a live music night, so we danced and watched and I don't even remember when everyone else left, but somehow I'd ended up back at my place with a girl in my bed whose name I couldn't remember.

I woke up as usual to the sound of my alarm, realising that despite it being the weekend, I always worked the overtime. Call me a workaholic, but it was good for taking my mind of things.

I rubbed at my pounding head as I stumbled out of my bed, choosing to ignore the situation in my bedroom as I fixated getting myself ready. When I entered my room again to get dressed, the woman who had previously been sleeping was sitting up, bed sheets fallen down to expose her bare body to the world, smoking a cigarette. She smiled at me as I entered, but I didn't return it back.

"I've got work in an hour, you can't stay here," I said, as I searched in my wardrobe for a clean shirt. Last night's stank of spilled alcohol and sex.

"I was hoping you'd come back to bed with me before I had to go," she replied. Her voice was smooth and cool, like she'd had this talk a thousand times before and won every time. Unfortunately for her, I wasn't letting her win today.

"I have to go. Do you need money for a cab?"

She stubbed out her cigarette on one of my ash trays and got out of the bed.

"Fine, suit yourself. You're the one missing out," she said, as she pulled back on her last nights clothes quickly.

"Oh, I'm sure I am, sweets," I said, watching her slip on her heels as I started to do up my tie.

"You know, I hate guys like you. You're shit under my shoe, that's all you are," she spat at me, walking closer to me and tugging on my tie to turn it into a tight knot, meaning I would have to redo it again. I nodded at her, paying more attention to undoing the knot than her as she made her way out to leave.

"Please shut the door on your way out! And have a nice day!" I called out to her as I heard her approach the front door to my apartment. I heard her swing it open, then slam it behind her, and I smiled as I managed to get my tie back to perfection.

* * *

I got to the office at my normal time, and I felt like I was in an especially friendly mood today. I smiled at everyone I passed, waving to Andy in his cubicle as I went by to my own. He was on the phone, but as I walked I saw him get up and try to stop me from walking on, but the length of the phone cord made him spring back into his cubicle and hit the wall as he did so. I laughed and shook my head, but carried on walking because despite my good mood, I didn't want to listen to Andy's nagging about where I went last night. I just wanted to settle into my desk and get my work done. Then I wanted to go out, have a beer, and call it another day. Like clockwork.

I had to admit, part of it drove me insane. Sometimes I wondered how I hadn't turned into a serial killer by now. The endless paper work to be done, and the constant ringing of the telephone. The repetitive routines and the same faces every day in, day out, was sometimes enough to do it, especially after 5 years. At one point last night I almost felt myself becoming sentimental about the whole thing. 5 years ago I had left high school and I was in need of desperate money because I knew I couldn't allow myself to keep crashing at my friends houses or ex-girlfriend's bedroom, and I definitely wouldn't resort to going back home, even for just one night. I had almost exhausted all my last options, until my current manager decided to take a chance on me, as long as I cleaned up my act. Back then he told me I reminded him of his son, who he wished he had connected with more before his crack habit had set in. Maybe that was why I always felt like the guy kept a watchful eye over me, always offering me as many opportunities as he could to ensure that I made a decent living for myself. That was why I was higher up than Andy. It reminded me that my life was truly set at staying at the company for as long as I could, no matter how much I hated it sometimes. But then, who really likes their job?

If the kid I once was in high school could see me now, he would spit on my overpriced shoes like I was the scum of the earth.

It didn't matter anymore. None of that old life did. I was no longer that stupid teenager, I didn't see my parents anymore and even though I had similar friends, we'd all grown past that.

Andy suddenly came rushing into my cubicle, extremely worked up about something.

Well, I thought we'd grown up.

"John, I need to tell you something, and you're not going to like me for it but I've held off telling you for too long!" he said, his voice a little too loud for my liking. I pressed a finger to my lips to get him to shut up, and stood up from my chair, inviting him to take the seat instead. As he sat, I leant against my desk, waiting for him to calm himself down.

"Go on, hit me," I said.

"I just hope you don't hit me first," he said, and I threw my head back and laughed.

"Let's see what you have to say first, sporto."

He smiled at the nickname, then carried on, now no longer out of breath.

"I got a phone call a few weeks ago from someone we know, asking if I could help get them an internship at the company. So I spoke to the floor manager, and then the boss, and I was able to make it happen."

"And you're telling me this… Why?"

"Because I don't think you're going to like who it is."

"Buddy, what sort of guy do you take me for? You know I have a soft spot for the long legged interns every summer, I don't see how I could be unhappy with anybody they pick to work here when they look like that."

"Well, it's not a female that's doing the internship. It's…er…It's Alec."

"Who?" I asked, though my gut dropped instantly because I recognised the name. It was the same name I'd been cursing since the day I'd met him.

"Claire's fiancé."

"Don't fucking call him that!" I said, my voice raising accidentally. I covered my mouth with my hand and moved away from my desk, pacing for a moment and rubbing at my face as if to wake myself up.

I was angry, livid even. Work was the one thing I used to get away from all the things I had going on in my head. I could settle down here and forget about everything outside of my cubicle for a few hours every day. I took extra shifts to occupy my time, prevent me from getting worked up over the sack of shit I called my life, and now this had happened. Now, everywhere I'd turn, I'd see Claire. She'd probably turn up at work to bring him his lunch, playing the stupid little housewife, miserable at best with a developing drinking problem. I knew I had to leave, I knew I had to quit. I knew I had to forget everything that I had thought before about my commitment to the company, and I'd have to go somewhere else. I'd heard that the law business was doing well as of late. Anything would be better than staying here, right now.

"Are you mad?" Andy asked.

"Are you an idiot? I'm furious you would screw me over like this, you bastard."

"You told me you didn't care! You said you didn't want to talk about it. Sue me for wanting to help the guy out."

"Oh yeah, sue you for getting pally with my exes new guy. Is that how it works, huh? Someone new comes along and you're gonna drop me? Well, I've had to put up with that all my life but I am definitely not letting it happen again!"

"John, you need to calm down, it's not like that, man."

"I am not your man!"

Andy threw his hands up in a defensive manner.

"Can we talk about this like adults?" he asked, standing and offering my seat back. I stared at him, but then finally nodded and sat back down reluctantly.

"All Alec is going to do here is sort files, do paperwork, stuff the other interns do. He isn't being paid, he doesn't have to even show up if he doesn't want to, but he told me he needs this for college."

I sneered, but Andy carried on, "You don't have to like the guy. I don't rate him much myself, but all I'm asking, and all anyone is asking, is for you to stay civil towards him and Claire."

"I'm so sick of hearing about this jerk's shit all the time. I hear it from Brian, and now I have to hear it from you."

"John, I know you'd never admit it back to me, but I'd like to call you a good friend of mine. I'm not trying to screw you over, I'm trying to help you like you helped me. So just trust me on this one, alright?"

I looked away, refusing to meet his eyes, but he insisted.

"Is that alright?" he said.

"Yes," I finally replied, still not meeting his eye.

"Good. Now I need to go back to work. I'll talk to you at lunch time. If you bump into Alec, promise me you won't kill him?"

"He's starting today? You never told me that!"

Andy shrugged his shoulders at me and quickly raced out of my cubicle as fast as he had raced in earlier. Suddenly my pounding headache from my hangover had come back with vengeance and I felt awful. I buried my head in my hands on my desk, banging a fist against my forehead to try and get my thoughts to quieten down, but they never did.

* * *

Lunchtime couldn't have come quick enough that day. After Andy had left, I refused to leave the cubicle incase I came face to face with any interns, and the longer I stayed, the smaller I felt the room getting until I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore. Once the clock hit 12, I left the building quickly, not stopping to so much as smile at any of my co-workers and completely ignoring Andy by the water cooler.

Once on the streets of the business estate of Shermer, I began to run. I allowed myself to forget about going back to work, acting like it didn't exist anymore. For all any passer by knew, I was just a random guy on the street, having far too much fun running around.

After a few more minutes of running until I was a good few blocks away from my office, I spotted a pay-phone booth. I reached into my pockets, searching for my loose change, and as soon as I had found some I entered the booth and put the change into the slot. I connected the phone and then instinctively dialled the number I had dialled so many times before, I could probably recite it backwards and in latin.

When the phone on the other end picked up, a female voice rang through the receiver. Claire.

"I want to know where exactly you get off with some of the shit you do," I said.

"Who is this?" she asked.

"You know who this is, Claire, it's John Bender. We need to talk."

There was a pause in the line and it sounded like she was shuffling about her room.

"What do you want to talk about?"

When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, alerting me that she probably hadn't been alone, but I didn't care. This was our first proper conversation in a good 3 years, and I had a lot to say.

"Well, first of all I want to know what this shit is about your little boyfriend interning at my work? That's my job, Claire! That rich son-of-a-bitch has no place here and he never will, so why the fuck is he here?"

"It wasn't my idea for him to get the internship! He asked for Andy's number and called him on his own accord. He did it for himself, not to spite you, no matter what you think. I know you dream up ideas of Alec being some scumbag who is worthy of your hate, but you're wrong. He's not like that."

"That's great for you, Princess, but I don't give a shit. I want him gone. I don't want to see him, and I don't want to speak to him."

"He's just trying to befriend you and Andy, he wants to patch things up."

"What?"

"I said…"

"I heard you, I'm not deaf. Why the fuck is he doing that?" I asked, quickly slipping in more quarters into the machine to prevent it from cutting out on me.

"Because he didn't like how it had been the last time he saw you all. You really upset me that night, John."

"Oh, boo hoo, Claire. Life isn't all sunshines and rainbows, I wasn't going to act happy for something that I'm not."

"I just want us all to get along. You know how much of a strain it is, the way things are? It'd be so much easier if…"

"No, it wouldn't. We can't be friends Claire, we were never just friends."

"I know that."

"So stop kidding yourself."

"I can't," she said.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, leaning my back against the glass.

"I don't know what you want from me."

"I told you, I want us all to get along. We don't have to be friends, but I don't want you to be horrible to Alec, and horrible to Brian, and so much of an ass."

"So Brian told you what I said, huh?"

"Yeah, and it was really rude of you. I think you should apologise to him, because you upset him, too."

"And what do you propose? Another group meeting at the Romany? That didn't work out for me the last time, and I don't want him going to that bar anymore."

"We won't go to the stupid Romany anymore," she said, getting angry again.

"Good. Can't you just make him quit?"

"No, you have to deal with it."

I sighed, and I heard her sigh too, and nobody said anything for a few minutes.

"John? Are you still there?"

For some stupid, unknown reason, I felt myself pause when I heard her say my name like that. It sounded vulnerable and weak, like her voice when she had just woken up in the morning and she was still half asleep, or whenever she had been crying and she wanted me to comfort her. It reminded me of the way things used to be, and I couldn't allow myself to be angry anymore. I still had a soft spot whenever she used that voice. I just tried my hardest not to imagine her using the same voice to talk to Alec.

"Yeah, Claire, I'm still here."

"I'm…We're having an engagement party at my parents place this weekend. Brian, Allison and Andy are going… You really don't have to, but would you like to come along?"

"Not really, no."

"What happened to getting along, huh?"

"Are you going to keep bugging me via strategically placing your boyfriend everywhere I go until I agree?" I asked. I heard her laugh.

"Maybe."

"Fine, I'll go."

"Great! Get Andy to fax you the details or something, but it's at my parent's house. Wear something smart, it's supposed to be a fancy thing."

"Sounds wonderful," I said, forcing a smile onto my face to really kid myself that, and try to break away from my usual sarcasm.

"It'll be nice to see you there."

"Yeah, you too, Claire. Bye," I said, then hung up the phone.

* * *

I finally came into contact with Alec at work later on in the week. It was growing closer to Friday and I was already becoming nervous as the idea of Claire's engagement party became a soon-to-be reality when Andy and I started sorting out plans for getting there and back. Seeing Alec was the last thing I needed, but he had already seen me so I knew I couldn't avoid him easily.

Our eyes met and he smiled, albeit slightly awkwardly, and pointed at me to show it was definitely me he as looking at. We met halfway.

"Hey, Claire's friend, right?"

"Ex."

"That's right. John?"

"That's me."

"Well, I just wanted to say how thankful I am for this opportunity to work at the company. I'm having a really great time here."

"Well, Al, I'm just thrilled for you, really," I said, backing up my dripping sarcasm with a smile.

"Thanks. And about that other night…"

"No need to talk about it."

"You really upset Claire…"

"It's all been taken care of, don't you worry your little blonde head about it, alright?"

He went to say something else, but then thought better of himself and nodded. Perhaps he realised that, technically, I was his superior. That was a good feeling.

"Listen, I'm about 3 hours behind my work today and I get off in, oh," I looked down at my watch, "Half an hour. How long are you meant to work until?"

"I finish in half an hour, too."

"Well, I hope you don't have any plans tonight, because that paperwork needs to be done and, as an intern, you need a taste of what it's like to be running behind schedule. Will you be a good sport and work on that for me?"

"But I…"

"Great, I knew I could count on you!" I patted him on his back, and began to walk towards my cubicle to grab my briefcase. "Come on, I'll show you what needs to be done."

When he finally followed, I sat him down at my desk and emptied half of the contents of my briefcase onto it, stacked into a large pile. Half of it was already done, but right now I was going out on a limb with this.

"So if you could get this all done for tomorrow, that would be wonderful. I would help, but I'm really running late for important matters."

"I can't…" he tried to begin again, his eyes widening as he saw that I was already backing out of the cubicle.

"Thanks again, buddy, it really means a lot to me. I hope this is the first step to us putting aside our differences and becoming friends!" I grinned at him, and waved as I began walking away again. "Oh," I called behind me as an after thought, "And I'll see you at the engagement party!"

When stepping into the elevator that day, I realised I'd never felt so rewarded by a day's work, and I'd hardly got anything at all done.


	6. Chapter 6

**Allison.**

I remembered the summers of high school vividly. Back then it actually felt like a break from life. We'd all work hard year round, or at least attempt to, and when May hit we'd get a break from it all for a few months. When you were younger, you didn't have any responsibilities. I remembered being 16 and spending my summer walking around Shermer, listening to music and going to shows. I felt like I had really discovered myself that year. Then the summer of the following year was filled with days of Andy Clarke, and nobody believed it would get any better than it already was.

That was the summer that we discovered the Romany in the town centre of Shermer, before Claire and Brian moved to Chicago for college. We used to go there every night, wasting our little funds on drinks and music on the juke box, but we had fun.

I knew it would all change once Andy got a job, and once the college students went to school. The Romany lost a lot of our business because we were all too tired to visit more than just a few times a week, and things started getting strained. Andy and I still worked at making time for each other, with date nights and meals out. We were still on a honeymoon then.

I wouldn't say we didn't love each other now, because I knew I had always loved Andy. But things got difficult once I started taking classes and he couldn't take anymore days off work. His manager had told him he'd used up all of his holidays, so we'd have to make do with the allotted days that everyone got off work, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. It meant there would be no more date nights or meals out. It meant that the only time we'd get to see each other anymore would be in the evenings and when we settled down for bed.

Despite what was going on at home, I was still enjoying myself. I was a few weeks into my class and we'd already started experimenting. This week we were making sculptures. I'd never worked in clay before, so it was a challenge, but I think it was for everybody there. Ricardo, who always worked next to me, had set his sculpture out by the window one night and when he came back for it the next evening, it had melted in the sunlight. So at least I was doing better than him.

When I walked back home from the class one night, Andy was sat watching a movie on our bust up TV set and drinking a beer. He turned around to me when I walked in, and I smiled as I put my keys on the side and took off my scarf.

"How was class?" he asked, and I nodded in response.

"It was okay. We're still doing sculptures, but I don't think I'm very good."

I walked into the kitchen as I spoke, talking louder the further I went away from him. I opened up our fridge and looked to see what there was to drink. We were running low on stock, so I made a mental note that I would have to go food shopping at some point this week. I decided to go for a diet coke, and I opened it straight away and began drinking it quickly, not realising how thirsty I had been before now. Andy got up from the couch and came to stand in the open kitchen door way, watching me.

"I'm sure you're fine, Al," he said. I felt like he had dismissed the subject.

"How was work?"

"I was waiting for you to ask," he said, smiling slightly, "Alec started working at the company. On our floor. He's doing an internship for the summer, he called and asked me and I pulled a few strings to make it happen. I don't mind the guy, he's alright and he's hardworking, but John is livid."

"John is?"

"Of course, it's Claire's fiancé."

"That Alec?"

"What other Alec's do you know, Allison?"

"Sorry, I guess I just zoned out."

The smile fell from Andy's face.

"Why do you never listen to my stories?" he asked, his voice coming out surprisingly quiet.

"I do," I said, then darted around him to leave the kitchen and sit on the couch, "What happened next?"

"I told you, John is livid. He avoided me and Alec all day, and he probably will for at least a week. When I left today I saw Alec sat at his desk, doing John's paperwork. He's punishing the poor guy."

Andy began to laugh, but I just nodded. I was too distracted to have a conversation about another couple when all I could think about was how worried I was about how I was doing in class.

"Allison?" Andy suddenly said, and I snapped my head up to him. "You weren't listening again, were you?"

"I was!"

"No, you weren't. I was telling you about Claire's engagement party on Friday that we're going to. I'll come straight from work with John to pick you up, then we'll head over."

"John's going?"

"Yeah, Claire called me today telling me to fax him the details just in case he'd forgotten the address to her house, but I offered him a ride with us."

"This Friday?" I asked, my brow furrowing.

"Yes, that's what I said."

"I have class that evening, you know that. I have to go to class."

Andy sighed heavily.

"Well, you'll have to just skip."

"I can't skip when I'm already falling behind!"

"You're not falling behind, Allison, you're doing fine."

"How would you know that?"

"Because I know you, and for some reason you've started worrying too much. What happened to the girl who didn't take shit from anybody?"

I stood up from the couch and left, walking towards our bedroom.

"Where are you going?" he asked, following behind me.

"To bed."

"But we need to talk about Friday plans."

"No, we don't. I'll skip the lesson because you told me to, because I always do what you tell me to do."

"Don't give me that shit!"

"What? You asked where the girl went who didn't take shit, and she's right here. Unfortunately, she has a boyfriend now who gives her so much shit that she gets tired of not taking it!"

"Where is this coming from?" he asked, his face pulled into a confused glare.

"From my heart."

"Your heart? Oh, that's great." He finished his beer, then placed it down on the side table.

"Yes, my heart."

"Look, you don't have to go on Friday, I don't give a shit. I want you to go, Claire wants you to go, but if your class is more important to you than your relationship and friends, then, well I don't know what the fuck to say to you."

My mouth hung agape, not really believing that he was saying this to me and cursing as much as he was.

"Fine, I'll go. I'll skip the class."

"It's not about the class anymore Allison, it's about us!"

"How is it about us?"

"You've met someone else, haven't you?"

"What are talking about?"

"There's someone else. I knew it. Someone from your class, that's why you want to go so badly. That's why you won't sleep with me."

"What, so because I won't screw you I'm cheating on you? It's great to know what you think of me, Andy."

"I just don't understand what's different now," he yelled at me, and I sat back on the bed, covering my face with my hands.

"Nothing's different," I said softly.

"Yes, it is. It used to be different when we first moved here. We couldn't wait to see each other, couldn't keep our hands off each other. Now you'd rather go to class than do that."

"That class is my future! And you're just as bad, you're always working, so it's not like you have time for me, either."

"It's been 3 weeks, Allison, 3 weeks since we've had sex. I don't understand what I've done wrong to deserve that."

"It's complicated, Andy, and I don't want to talk about it right now. Can we please go to bed? We can talk about this later, and I will skip on Friday and go with you to Claire's. But can we please go to bed now?" I moved my hand from my face and I looked up at him, aware that my eyes were watering. It was unusual for me to cry whenever I argued with Andy. I had used to cry a lot in high school, but one day I woke up and realised that nobody liked a sissy, so I no longer liked to cry. But right now, looking at him so angry at me, I felt tears springing to my eyes.

His face softened notably, and he nodded.

"Yes, we'll go to bed," he said, then walked to his closet to get into his pyjamas, the fight over for now.

* * *

Long after Andy and I had settled into bed, I was still wide awake, lying completely still staring up at the ceiling. I could hear Andy's heavy breathing next to me, and I felt like he was so far away on the other side of the bed. There was a great space between us, because neither of us had apologised so neither of us had moved to hug each other.

I looked over at him, and in the darkness I could see the shape of his back highlighted by a streetlamp shining in the window through the gap in the curtains, all the way from the street down below us.

Carefully, so as not to wake him, I crept out of bed and to the corner of the room where I kept my easel and art supplies. I turned the lamp on that gave me light directly onto my canvas, and quickly glanced over at the bed to make sure that it hadn't stirred Andy. He remained still, so I carried on.

I sat down at my chair, and decided I wanted to paint something new tonight. I moved the current canvas down to the floor, setting it where I kept the rest of my unfinished pieces, and replaced it with one of my last blank canvases. I didn't have many left, meaning I would have to get in more soon, so I had to make sure this one meant something.

I began mixing colours, but all I could think about was what Andy had accused me of earlier. Cheating on him, being unfaithful, all because I didn't sleep with him and didn't listen to his stories. He was always such a drama queen about things, and it got on my nerves all the time. But I loved him, so you put up with that stuff.

I looked back at his body on the bed, deciding that despite the fact I still loved him, I was still angry at him for shouting at me when I'd done nothing wrong. I wondered where he'd got the notion of me having someone else, if he had seen the members of my art class and knew that I sat next to a man named Ricardo. Everyone else in the class was over 30 or female; Ricardo was the only person there who was my age. Andy must somehow have known about him, and was making me pay because of his suspicions.

I splashed a colour across the white space. I wanted to take my anger out on my painting. I made curves and lines, switching brushes now and then, making a brown background and then working on a figure in the foreground.

It wasn't until I was half way done painting his features that I realised it was an image of Ricardo and his melted sculpture, looking at me as if I had taken a picture of the moment and locked us in it forever.

* * *

On Friday night, Andy picked me up from the apartment at 6:30pm to head to Claire's house. I had dressed in all black, as usual, but I had scraped my hair back with a velvet headband so it wasn't covering my face so much. With me, I took a suit jacket for Andy to change into in the car, and as I left I slipped a flask of vodka into my purse, because if I knew anything about Claire's family from what she had told me in the past, I knew we would all need it.

When I opened the door to the car, John was in the back smoking his usual cigarette. After Andy gave me a kiss on the cheek to greet me, I pulled a face.

"No smoking in the car!" I said, widening my eyes at Andy as he started up the car again and began to drive. John put the cigarette back in his mouth, took one last drag, then flicked it out of the open window as he blew the smoke out.

"All gone," he said, showing me his empty hands.

"Thank you." I nodded, and then sat back in my seat.

Usually Andy took my hand while he was driving, but we hadn't had a chance to talk after our fight yet so he didn't touch me. He didn't even look at me, no matter how many times I glanced at him.

"I hope you're all hungry. Brian told me Claire's family have ordered enough food for a thousand people," I told them, adjusting the hemline of my dress. "I snuck us in some alcohol in my purse, just in case they make us pay or something, I figured you'd all appreciate that."

"Thanks," was all Andy said.

John looked between the two of us.

"How's life, Allison?" he asked, wanting to avoid the silence just as much as I did.

"It's fine. Art class is going well. Today we finished our sculptures so next week we move onto painting, my favourite." I never took my eyes off Andy as I spoke.

"Yeah, we all know that," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm sensing some unwanted tension here," John said, moving forward in his seat towards us.

"Shut up, Bender," Andy said.

"Touchy, touchy."

"John, don't get involved. Please. I'm too tired for this," I said.

"Like always, then," said Andy. I looked at him and this time he was actually looking back. "You don't have a job, you do nothing all day and yet you're always tired."

I didn't say anything back, just looked at him with my widening eyes. Eventually he had to turn away to look at the road, and when he did I looked out the window, watching as we left the town and started towards the richer estates of Shermer. I knew that any other normal person in my situation would perhaps cry, or at least be upset by the way I was being treated, but I had never been normal. I felt numb to any emotions, just waiting for Andy's hand to creep on my leg to bring me back to earth and assure me that things were okay and I was really here. But it never did.

As we pulled up in front of Claire's family home, I felt John's hand on my shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. I put my hand over his, squeezing it back, and then we both let go. That was enough for me right now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Claire.**

Friday marked the official announcement of my engagement to Alec, and the day had come quicker than I had perhaps anticipated.

My mother had outdone herself more than ever before. With my dad's money, of course, she'd ordered catered food, drinks and decorations including ice sculptures for all of our guests to enjoy while they visited our house. We had even rehearsed the announcement. Alec and I were to greet everyone at the door, mostly just my parent's friends and associates, and then we would stand on the oversized staircase to tell them all the news. With any luck, they would all cheer and clap, and then I could get started on the eating and drinking.

I wouldn't say I wasn't looking forward to it. On the contrary, I had invited the girls from high school whom I used to be close with, as well as my best friends and a few people from college, so I was looking forward to seeing everyone. It was just the huge ordeal that this commitment had caused. Everyone had to know in the most extravagant way, and nothing could be simple about it. I almost wished it could've been a hushed affair, a wedding with no more than 20 guests, where afterwards Alec and I would slip away to live somewhere far away and only return for holidays. But I had never had the luxury of quiet affairs.

By 6pm, the food was set out on the tables and the ice sculptures were being placed strategically around the room. They were modelled after the body of Venus and other greek gods and ancient works, showing off the wealth and class of my family. I hated them from the moment I saw them. I watched as Michelangelo's David was carried in, and immediately I wanted to attack the bust with an ice pick and watch it melt outside in the summer weather.

Alec caught me glaring at it when we were both fully dressed and made up, ready to present ourselves to everyone. I was wearing a long sleeved yellow dress; it made my hair look even more orange and horrendous with my complexion. I had told my mother that I felt like a banana, but Alec had said I could be the most beautiful of the bunch if I wanted to be. He wore a matching flower on the lapel of his evening suit, a grey number that was fitted to his form and actually looked very good. As he approached me, he had already taken off his jacket and had rolled the arms of his shirt up. His parents weren't here tonight, so he could do whatever he want, while I felt restricted.

"Why the long face?" he asked me, wrapping his arm around my waist and leaning his head against my shoulder so we could both watch from the sidelines as the room was set up. I was leant against a wall, so he leant with me.

"I'm fine," I said.

"It's alright to be nervous, God knows I would be, too."

"But you're not."

"You're right, but that's because I don't know anyone here. I could make a complete fool out of myself and I doubt they would care."

"You'll know Andy and Allison when they get here. And Brian."

"And John Bender?"

I sighed, and turned to look at him.

"Brian told you he was coming?"

"No, John told me he was coming. Before he left me with all of his paper work to do."

"I'm sorry. He's such an asshole."

Alec smiled and kissed me on my forehead.

"Yeah, I don't know what you ever saw in that guy."

"I wonder that too."

* * *

We stood by the door as everyone began to pile inside. Alec shook hands and gave kisses, while I received them and hugs from all of my parent's old friends, who told me how much I had grown and how magnificent I looked. Soon after the first set of people began to arrive, a group of girls walked through the door that I immediately recognised as Heather, Benny and Steff; my old high school girlfriends. They squealed once they had spotted me, running towards me and roping me into a big hug. They all still looked as trendy as they had when we were friends, and on their arm they each had an equally fashionable guy friend.

"Claire! It's been so long!" Steff began, kissing me once on each of my cheeks. "This is my boyfriend, Tommy. Tommy, this is the Claire I told you about."

I hugged her boyfriend, and then moved onto the next girl.

"You bitch, you never told us your boyfriend was so handsome," Heather said, biting her lip and looking over at Alec.

"Yeah, Claire, you need to spill on the deets of how you landed that one," Heather added.

"Maybe some other time, I'm gonna be busy tonight," I said.

"Yeah, she's gonna be busy with her handsome boyfriend," Alec said, grinning as the girls all laughed amongst themselves. When they moved on, I ran my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. Thankfully, the next to arrive were people I was actually thankful to see. Andy and Allison walked in through the door together, but surprisingly were not wrapped around each other like they were usually.

"Hey guys!" I said, smiling and looking back and forth between them as they approached. Alec followed in my lead. Straight away Allison stepped forward and pulled me into a tight hug, and as it went on and I realised she wasn't going to let go, I got worried.

"Honey, what's wrong?" I asked her quietly, stroking her hair, but she just shook her head and then finally pulled away. Her face was emotionless as she looked at me, and then she moved away, going into the party alone.

Andy and Alec had already exchanged handshakes, so I was next to greet him. He pulled me into a hug, and as he did he whispered into my ear.

"Don't ask."

I knew instantly what he was talking about, so I decided to dismiss it for now. Tonight I couldn't be worrying about other people's relationships, especially when this evening was so important to my own. I watched Andy leave me and Alec, following after Allison but then deciding to go in the opposite direction. As Allison went to get a drink, Andy went to go see Heather, Benny and Steff, who all seemed happy to see him. I frowned at the sight, but couldn't stare too long because Alec was already greeting the next guest.

When I turned, I saw John standing in the doorway, shaking Alec's hand with an overly tight grip. Alec pulled a face as John let go, and when John wasn't looking he rubbed at his sore hand. As John looked over at me and our eyes met, I felt myself freeze. I didn't for a moment actually expect him to really turn up, and even if he had, I hadn't planned what to say to him or how to greet him. I didn't know whether to hug him, shake his hands, or full on kiss both of his cheeks, European style. He smiled at me, the first in a long time, and I felt a smile spring to my face before I could even stop it. He wrapped his arms around me for a hug before I could do the same to him, but when I did we stood there for a moment in each other's embrace, though it was not at all romantic.

"Thank you for coming," I said.

"Don't mention it, cherry," he said into my ear, pulling away and smiling again, leaving us both as he headed inside. As he walked away I could still smell him, the familiar scent of marlboro cigarettes and the same aftershave he always wore. It reminded me of being 18 again, and I almost gasped out loud at it all. This was becoming too much.

"Alec, where's Brian?" I said hurriedly, looking up at him.

"Last I saw him, he was looking at the sculptures. The Venus one, I think. Why?"

"I'm bored of greeting everyone now. I'm going to go talk to him now. You go mingle with everyone."

Alec nodded, and leant down to kiss me on the cheek. I let him, then quickly walked away as fast as the heels on my shoes would let me.

I found Brian drinking a glass of diet Coke and inspecting an ice sculpture, just like Alec had said.

"They're awful, aren't they?" I said as I came up behind him. He turned and smiled, then looked back up at Venus.

"I'd say they're an acquired taste."

"They sculpted her tits perfectly," I said nonchalantly. Brian spluttered out his drink as he began to laugh.

"That is the most John-like thing I think I've ever heard you say."

I smiled at the ground.

"What's wrong?" he asked, turning away from the ice and putting a hand on my back. I looked up at him and shrugged.

"I don't know, I just feel bad. I think Andy and Allison had a fight before coming here. They won't even look at each other. And then John walked through the door and it completely threw me off."

"Who on earth convinced him to actually show up?"

"I did. But now I'm wondering if that was a bad idea."

"I guess we'll find out," Brian said, and then took another sip of his drink. I nodded, and looked back up at the sculpture.

I stood talking to Brian for a while and he made me feel comforted again, as he always did. When I broke away from him, I looked around the huge front room and noticed that Alec had moved from the doorway and had wandered off somewhere. Not wanting to lose him in such a big house, I walked around the room, smiling at everyone that I passed but not making an effort to stop and talk. I passed by Allison talking to a few men underneath one of the sculptures. She had a glass in her hand but she didn't drink from it because she was too involved in her conversation about the sculpture she'd been working on all week in her college class. The men only seemed half-interested. A few moments later I passed by Andy, now standing alone, watching Allison and gripping his drink tightly. I could tell he was angry, so I left him alone.

As I walked past the closed door to the back room, I overheard my father's voice talking to someone. I stopped, leaning against the door gently so I could hear what was being said.

"How long is it until you finish medical school, son?" he said.

"I have a few more years of my course, then I have to enrol again for further education," I heard Alec reply. I frowned, curious to know what they would be talking about. Alec and my dad had barely spoken before this summer, despite the length of my relationship with him.

"Nonsense, you don't want to waste the rest of your life in school. I have a proposition for you, and I know you won't be able to refuse."

"I'd love to hear about it, sir."

"I'd be willing to take you on at my company. You got an internship right now? That's fine, great, even. The experience will do you good. But I don't see doctor in your future. I see businessman. High earning businessman. And I can help you do that."

"That sounds… that sounds appealing."

"I know it does. That's why I went into the business myself! See, it's a family thing. Only my father didn't manage his own company, but I do. I could just pull a couple of strings and you're on board!"

"You would do that?"

"Of course, anything for my future son-in-law," my dad said, and chuckled to Alec.

"What would Claire think, though?" Alec asked. Suddenly the sound of my mother's voice cut in.

"Don't you worry about her. She doesn't know what she wants right now. She'll realise it once you're working at the company."

"What will she realise?"

"That she wants to follow after me, of course. She'll have a few children, though she will have more help than I did, and then you'll both settle down. Not until after the wedding, mind. You have to understand, Alec, that this is something we've had planned for Claire's future for a long time. We're both thrilled to meet that man that we know will help make this all a reality for her."

By now my mouth was hanging open, and I felt angry. I knew all of this before now, having had a hunch my whole life, but the conformation of it seemed to make it feel even worse. This night really was going down awfully, for me at least. I waited for Alec to tell my parents that they were wrong. I hoped he would know that if he went through with something like this, I would hate it and I would hate him. I never wanted to be like my mother, never wanted to be like my parents. If Alec worked like my dad, and I lived like my mom, we would be miserable. But I never heard Alec's reply, because someone approached me and caused me to flinch as I came back to reality of my engagement party.

"Spying?"

It was John's voice, and when I looked around I saw him standing before me, sipping at a glass of whiskey and raising his eyebrows at me. I didn't know what to say. It was like I was face to face with both halves of my life. My past staring at me, drinking alcohol and taunting me, while my future was in the room before me, waiting for me to walk into it with open arms as a welcoming.

"I…" But I didn't get to finish my sentence, because my mother opened the door of the back room. She looked shocked to find me standing there, then looked at the man next to me and appeared even more shocked. I knew she recognised him immediately, but she would never let on to that. She wouldn't want John to be here right now.

"Oh, hello, darling. How long have you been there? And who's your friend?" she said. By now Alec and my dad had joined us, all of us crowding around John and waiting for him to talk.

"John Bender, Mrs. Standish," John said, extending a hand out to her. She took it with her own, and he leant in and kissed it. When he pulled away, my mother looked over at me in confusion.

"But this can't be the same…? No, of course not!" she began to laugh. "Oh, goodness. Claire used to have a boyfriend with the same name. What a mess of a boy he was!"

John smiled, and let go of her hand, not saying anything in reply.

"He wasn't that bad, mother," I said, not letting myself look at John again, because I knew he would throw me off. Instead, it was Alec's eyes I found, his face was unreadable.

"He was a complete train wreck, Claire. I knew he was on drugs since the first day I met him. I don't know what possessed you…"

"Mom…" I urged her to stop, but John cut in.

"He sounds like a complete tool, Mrs. Standish. I agree. I don't know what would've possessed Claire to go from a guy like him to someone like young Alec here."

My mother nodded, but I knew she was still confused. She knew who John was.

"I better leave you all to it now and go join the party. It was lovely to see you Mrs. Standish, Mr. Standish, it's been a while," said John, backing away from us all. He stopped, and added, "Oh, and Mrs. Standish? I really was never addicted to drugs. Just alcohol. I wouldn't want you spreading lies about me, now, would I?" He winked at my mother, causing her mouth to hang open again, and then finally left.

"Howard… I think that really was…" my mother began, but Alec moved towards me and cut her off.

"Come on, Claire, I think we should make our announcement now."

* * *

As we climbed the stairs in the front room, in front of all of the guests who were beginning to stop their conversations and watch us, I didn't know what to say to Alec, or whether it would be appropriate to talk at all. I knew he'd probably figured out that I'd heard him talking to my parents. He also knew who John really was, knew he really was my ex boyfriend, so maybe he was upset for finding me talking to him. I didn't know what to think right now, and I was taken aback when Alec put his arm around me as we turned on the stairs and stood before everyone. But then I remembered we were in front of guests, and this was supposed to be one of the happiest moments of my life. Instead, I would remember it as uncomfortable.

My dad stood in front of us at the bottom of the steps, as rehearsed, and began to tap on his glass to get everyone to pay attention to us. This felt overdramatic and stupid.

"If I could have all of your attention for a moment, please, I have an important announcement to make," he began. "A few years ago, my lovely daughter Claire bought Alec home with her from college, and introduced me to her new boyfriend. As I'm sure many of you would expect, I was skeptical at first. These young people have a habit of changing their minds frequently. But not our Claire, she's a one-woman-guy."

I looked down at the crowd gathered, and locked eyes with Allison, who was straight faced and standing alone. Then to Andy, also standing alone. In fact, all of my friends were standing alone, none of them smiling, except for John. I watched him, distracted by the grin on his face as my father basically excused all of my past relationships and completely painted John out of the picture.

"I knew from day one that they were supposed to be together. And that is why we have gathered you all here tonight. Alec?" My dad stepped away and looked up to the stairs. Everyone's eyes were on us.

"Thank you. Mr. Standish is right. Claire and I are meant to be together, and I knew that ever since the day we met. That is why, I am officially announcing that Claire has accepted the honour of being my lawfully wedded wife on September 1st."

Everyone began to clap for us, a few cheers rang out the room, and Alec leaned down to kiss me on the lips. When he pulled away he smiled, walking us down the stairs with me on his arm. I tried my best to smile at everyone who was clapping for me, but I was still thinking about earlier, and I didn't feel happy. I knew that Alec and I were putting on an act right now, and tonight we would have a row, and it was making it even worse to have to pretend that there was nothing wrong. I had nothing to say back to any of the kind words anyone said. I just smiled and let Alec do the talking.

Finally out of the crowds appeared the familiar face of Brian. He looked dishevelled and windswept, like he'd just come in from outside, but I took no notice. I pulled him into a hug, trying my hardest to make it look like friendly, when really I was seeking comfort.

"Alec and I are probably going to fight tonight," I whispered into his ear. He nodded slightly.

"John is on the roof by your bedroom."

He let me go and stepped away.

"Huh?" I asked, but he just pointed towards the ceiling and then left again.

I guess that was motive enough for me to go looking for John Bender.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's note: This is my favourite chapter of this story so far. I really enjoy exploring the dynamic of Claire and John's post-relationship interaction, so expect more from them in future chapters. Enjoy!**_

* * *

**John.**

I got called into my manager's office when I got to work that Friday morning. I was half-expecting him to scold me for abusing Alec's internship and getting him to do most of my work, so I prepared for the worst. Even though the guy liked me, I knew I wasn't exempt from punishment for my wrong doings. I decided to excuse myself for half an hour, and I stood outside the front of the building making my way through my daily packet of cigarettes, chain smoking until my throat burned and I couldn't stop coughing.

Eventually I finally mustered up enough to head back into the building. I didn't stop to smile at anyone as I went, alerting them of the important mission I was on to get to the head office. Nobody stopped me, and let me go on my way, and I reached the door in record time. That was the opposite of what I wanted. All my life I'd never been scared of confrontation, actually getting a kick every time I got called to teacher's offices at school, but this felt so different. This was my career, my life. I didn't want to screw it up, but my prejudice just might have done that. I knocked, and a few minutes later I was called in.

I walked into the room and sat before me was Mr. Parker, the manager of my floor, inviting me to take a seat. I complied, all the while watching him as he sat with his hands rested on his rounded belly. He pointed towards the mug he had on his desk, giving me another invitation for a drink, but I declined despite my bone dry throat.

"I suppose you want to know what purpose I have to call you in here, Mr. Bender?"

"Of course, sir. I've already ruled out the possibility of it being because of my devilishly handsome good looks."

Mr. Parker chuckled, and sat forward.

"No, Mr. Bender, it's not because of that. Actually, I have a new opportunity for you."

Now I sat forward in my chair, relieved and very much interested in what he had to say.

"Oh? What's that, sir?"

"We've had a job offer come up in one of our out of state offices. We're branching out, you see. I got a phone call yesterday from one of the head bosses of the deal and he told me that someone had dropped out of one of the management roles. We're talking big money, head of business, in charge. That is where you come in, Mr. Bender. After thinking it over in my head for the day, I knew I had the right candidate in mind. You're young, a smart talker, and a people person. You always get the job done and you've been in this company for a suitable amount of time."

Well, as of late, Alec always got my job done.

"You're offering me a promotion to management?" I said,

"Yes, Mr. Bender. You would be a manager, just like me."

"That's fantastic!"

"Excellent! I'm glad to see you're enthusiastic."

"But, sir, if you don't mind me asking, where is this office located?"

"West Coast. San Diego. You would have to move there for the job, of course."

"I'd have to move to San Diego?" I said, trying as hard as I could to hide any shock in my voice. San Diego was a hell of a long way away, and as much as I complained about Shermer and Illinois, I'd never known any different. I'd made a life for myself here that I would have to leave behind.

Mr. Parker pursed his lips, eyeing me carefully.

"Look, how about you think it over? I don't need to send you over until August 30th, so you have time to decide what you want to do, and then I can book your plane. The company will cover your living costs for the first year or so while you're out there."

"It sounds like I'd be set."

"You would be Mr. Bender."

I nodded, and stood up from the chair.

"Thank you, Mr. Parker. I will get back to you soon."

I leant forward and shook his hand, then promptly left his office. When I returned to my desk, I settled in my chair and laid my head face first into my paperwork.

If I went to San Diego, I'd have to start over. There would be no way I could keep my friendships and relationships if I was so far away. I likened it to Brian. He moved away to Chicago for school, and now we barely saw him. Whenever he came back he was a little bit different each time, and we all knew we were slowly losing the guy we once knew in high school.

But that was it. Nothing would ever be like high school again. I lost the girl, lost my smart mouth and bought into an adult life. I had already kissed my school life goodbye, and perhaps everyone else had, too. Maybe I wouldn't even be missed if I went out of state. Maybe that would be the final way to say goodbye to high school. Maybe that would help me get over Claire.

I wanted to punch myself in my own gut for even thinking about her again.

I figured when we broke up and I realised she wasn't coming back, my mind would eventually stop going back to her. But that was almost 4 years ago now, and it still hadn't happened.

I reached into my jacket pocket and went for my packet of cigarettes, praying I had just one more left so I could at least take my tension out on something instead of letting it keep in my mind and drive me crazy all day. Upon opening the packet, I saw it was empty.

I left my cubicle, not bothering to grab my things, and raced down the sea of makeshift offices until I found Andy's. We weren't sentimental guys, we never spoke about our feelings to each other no matter what shit we were going through, but this was a big deal and I felt like he at least deserved to know about it. But before I could even open my mouth, I found myself staring at the image of Andy and Alec stood together, laughing with each other and talking like they were old friends. High school friends.

"Son of a bitch," I muttered, running a hand through my hair, standing in place. Andy looked up and his face fell, presumably judging from my own that I wasn't happy with what I was seeing. He stepped forward, but I shook my head and turned away, stalking back to my desk. I checked my watch, and found that I had 4 hours left in this hell hole before I finished my shift for the day.

Maybe San Diego would be good for me, maybe it would help me hate this life a little less.

* * *

I found myself milling about Claire's family home on Friday night with more ease than was perhaps expected of me. I knew the building well, having visited it almost every day of the summer some 4 years ago, though it was a rarity that I was downstairs in the house. Usually Claire and I would sneak around upstairs, trying to hide my very existence from her parents. I always figured they knew who I was, and the fact I was there, but Claire was adamant that they didn't know me until she introduced me at dinner one day. As I walked through an alcove from one room to the next, I recognised the room as the dining area where we had our meal, though tonight the table and chairs were missing and instead replaced with a ridiculous looking ice sculpture. I moved forward to inspect it, noting the attention to detail of the figure's ball sack, and had to take a drink from my glass of whiskey to prevent myself from laughing too much.

It was a beautiful venue and a beautiful evening, I could give Claire that. She herself looked lovely in her dress, but I would never admit that. When I spoke to her and she inevitably blushed at one point, she looked even lovelier.

Few people spoke to me, but I spotted a group of women who I seemed to recognise standing by the table of champagne glasses. I sauntered over to them, bending in front of them to get myself a glass.

"Ladies," I said, excusing my appearance at their sides.

"Well, hello there," one of the girls cooed, causing the other girls to giggle around her. They were no more women than they were teenage school girls. I immediately knew them as Claire's old friends.

"I don't suppose you all remember me from Shermer high school?" I asked.

"Were you on the football team?"

I laughed and shook my head.

"Quite the opposite, actually. John Bender," I said, then took a sip from my champagne glass. One of the girls opened her mouth to reply, but we were all called away by the sound of a tapping glass. I turned to the sound and saw the scene laid out. Claire and Alec were stood next to each other on the staircase, with her father at the bottom smiling at the crowds of people stood before him. I moved to get in closer so I could hear what he had to say, though I knew too well what it would be about.

As Mr. Standish began his speech, I found myself ignoring him, choosing instead to focus on Claire as she stood looking out at everyone. She looked like she was lost, unaware of her surroundings. I noted that while Alec held her, she didn't hold him back. For a moment I wanted to kid myself that it was a sign she didn't love him. Finally, her gaze shifted from someone else to me, and we were staring at each other. I didn't move, still to my spot, as her mouth fell slightly open like she didn't know what to say. But I was smiling the whole time. She didn't feel miles away anymore. It was like she was right in front of me, like I had just told her I was leaving and she was in disbelief of the whole ordeal. I constantly tried to forget that night, but I just couldn't.

People around me began to clap, and I realised that Alec had just told them all about the engagement. Now the big secret was out, it no longer felt like something I could've made up in my mind. It was all too real now. I downed the last of my champagne in one go, turning as soon as it was finished and placing the glass down on any surface I could find. Then I left for the door and walked out into the night.

* * *

I wanted to run away from the whole thing, realising then that no matter what anyone said to me, this whole thing had been a mistake. Before Claire had returned back to Shermer, I felt I had forgotten about it all. I couldn't remember the fine details of our fight anymore and I had almost forgotten what she looked like when she smiled. I was getting over it, finally, and when nobody talked about her it helped. But now their conversations were all about the wedding. Andy and Allison talked in quiet voices around me whenever I saw them together, but I knew that they were making plans for the date, deciding on what to wear and whether they should get a cab or not. Even Brian forgot every now and then that I didn't want to hear about it, and would start talking about Claire's plans to have him as her page boy. Usually I would tease him for it, tell him that the job was for little kids, but I didn't have it in me anymore.

I looked towards the road out of the house, and knew how easily I could get back to the familiar parts of Shermer that I knew if I just started running now. I could probably make it back to my apartment in less than 15 minutes if I was quick. I had taken the path many times before, it was like following the lines in the palm of my hands or locating the scars still resident on my skin from my childhood. But Andy had promised me a lift back home, and if I disappeared now I knew I would have to face him instead at work. He would come up to me with a smugness on his face, knowing that I had confirmed everything he already knew about how I felt for Claire. I couldn't leave, but I couldn't stay inside.

I was half aware of Brian leaving the house and following me as I went round to the back of the house, locating the side that I knew to be where Claire's bedroom was when she was a teenager. The vines and bushes that I had once used to climb the walls up to the roof were still there; they had once been perfect for sneaking in and out of the room. They were still in immaculate condition now, the flowers blooming and the stems green. That definitely was not the work of anyone in Claire's family.

As I took a hold of the vines and began to hoist myself up, Brian finally made himself known.

"John, what are you doing?" he hissed at me as I carried on climbing.

"Go back inside, Brian," I called down to him.

"You're going to fall down!"

"You don't think I've done this a million times before?"

He didn't reply, and let me finish my climb until I reached the roof. Now on higher ground, I turned myself around until I was sitting comfortably, staring down at him still on the ground.

"I'm going back inside," he said.

I nodded, and pulled a cigarette out of my new pack to enjoy while I was still up there. With any luck, I'd be able to stay until the party was over and not have to go inside again.

Half way through my cigarette, I heard the familiar sound of a window being pushed open. I turned to look, and saw Claire hitching herself up to sit on the window sill, her legs hanging out and her feet on the roof, at a comfortable distance from me.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi," I said back.

"You didn't enjoy the party?"

"I needed some air."

"On my roof?"

"Yeah."

I looked back at my cigarette, almost done now, and savoured the last few drags I took from it. I took the carton out of my pocket again, pushing one cigarette out and then offering it to her. She nodded, and we both stretched forward so she could reach for it. Then I passed her over my lighter, and we sat in silence for a bit longer as she started to smoke.

"I haven't done this for a while," she said, commenting on the cigarette.

"Neither have I," I said, referring to the roof. "I'd noticed you weren't smoking."

"I stopped when I met Alec. He doesn't like it."

"What a swell guy."

"Well, I'm marrying him."

"I know that." I looked away from her, not wanting to see her while she spoke about it. Instead, she changed the subject.

"You know, being up here brings back a lot of memories."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, when you used to sneak in at nights. You got so good at climbing up it only took you a minute. I think I timed you once."

We both laughed at the memory.

"You wanna hear something dorky?" she asked suddenly.

"You mean everything you say?"

"Alright, alright. You ever heard of Flock of Seagulls?"

"What is that, a bird formation?"

"No, it's a band. They have this song, 'Space Age Love Song.' I used to listen to it every time you left my room at night and whenever I got back from spending a day with you during summer."

I smiled, and she laughed again.

"Things just seem so different now," she began again, and I looked back at her. She was still looking at me, holding her cigarette between her fingers and letting it burn.

"That's because they are."

"How did that happen?"

I paused, then sighed.

"You went away," I said.

"Not before you did."

"Claire, you moved to Chicago. You know how much it cost me to visit you every time you called and told me you wanted to see me?"

"You told me money wasn't a problem with your job."

"It wasn't. But it sucked. You weren't there when I wanted you to be."

"That's selfish of you. You were always working."

I didn't say anything.

"The circumstances weren't what caused us to break up, John." Her voice was soft again, having risen moments before when mine had been accusing. Claire was always so quick to defend herself.

"I know that," I agreed, "I guess things just changed."

"You stopped loving me?"

"No, Claire!" I glared back at her, and she sunk down in her spot, immediately apologetic for the suggestion. "I loved you too much."

"I always thought it would be you on the stairs with me. I thought you would've been the one I'd marry, all those years."

"Yeah, well, if it had been me, I doubt your daddy would've been so happy to give us both away."

"Don't say that. You don't know that."

"Well, it sure seems like your mother never liked me," I spat.

Claire shook her head quickly.

"That never mattered to me, John, you know that."

"Why does it even matter now? You're marrying someone else and I'm…I've been offered a promotion."

"Oh, congratulations."

"Yeah. But it's in San Diego."

"That's a long way away," she said.

"Yeah," I rubbed at my forehead with my hand. "I don't know what to do."

"You don't want to leave Shermer?"

"Did you want to leave Shermer?" I asked her.

"I always wanted to leave Shermer."

"Even with me here, and all of your friends?"

"I knew they'd understand. I still kept in touch. And it's not like you have a girlfriend to worry about leaving behind like I did…"

"Don't I?"

"No? I mean, I thought you were… I mean, I assumed you were single…"

"I am. Forget it."

"No, please tell me what you meant."

She leaned forward in the window, wrapping her arms around her knees. I glanced back at her, then looked away again because I knew I couldn't face her.

"I don't want to leave because you always stop me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you still think about me, Claire? Do you ever think… that you still love me?"

"Really? You want me to answer that?"

I nodded, and she shrugged.

"Well, I mean… that's a lot to…um…think about…"

"Tell me the truth."

"Then no. I'm sorry, John. I love Alec. But what does that have to do…"

"Just forget about it, Claire."

"Please just tell me."

"I did. You always stop me."

"How do I?"

"Because I still love you, Claire," I suddenly shouted. Her eyes widened and she looked around, suddenly conscious that someone could hear us. "I never stopped. After all this time... It's… It's fucking stupid."

"John…"

"No, I don't want the pity."

"John, you know I'm always the last person to pity you. I've never done that."

We looked at each other, but I didn't respond.

"I'm getting married in a months time. You have to stop holding on now. You have to do what's best for you. Go to San Diego."

"You don't care if I leave?"

"I haven't seen you in 3 years."

"That doesn't answer the question."

"I can't care if you leave. I'm getting married and I can't think about these what ifs anymore. We're over, and you were the one who made sure of that."

It hurt, but I knew it was true. I turned away from her, looking back out at the dark night, and I heard her sigh from the window. She murmured something about being cold and going back inside, then I heard the window shut again, leaving me alone on the roof with just my thoughts and my burnt out cigarette.


	9. Chapter 9

**Andy.**

To say things were tense with Allison was an understatement. The night of Claire's engagement party, we all decided to call it a night early, and nobody talked on the way home. John seemed to be mulling things over in the back of my car, and Allison just stared out the window. I decided not to test things with either of them. I figured John was still angry at me after things in the office earlier, and I was angry with Allison because of the show she had pulled that night, talking to those men about her art. I had watched them eye her the whole time, and I knew it wasn't just my imagination that they were looking at her like she was a piece of meat.

I glanced over at her, and I didn't blame them for thinking it. She was truly beautiful, her own work of art, but sometimes I wondered if she ever felt the same way for me. At night when I was in bed alone while she painted, I wondered if she was thinking about other people that weren't me. I was selfish, and wished that I would take up her whole mind.

Sometimes I would get up when she'd finally gone to bed, and I would watch late night reruns of old movies on our TV. The picture was fading and it was an ancient model, but I could still hear the sound. I watched films about high school romances, and older loves that fell apart. I wondered if that was the future for us. Sometimes I started to really believe in it.

I didn't notice until I had parked the car and Allison was getting out how tight my grip on the steering wheel had been. It hadn't made me feel any better.

She claimed she had been too tired to talk that night, an excuse she often used, so we just went to bed. I didn't fall asleep, though, and as she laid next to me I heard her fast breathing, knowing that she wasn't asleep, either.

I had to win her back somehow.

The next day at the office, I passed by Alec as he was walking through the halls holding binders and looking flustered, and I stopped him for a moment to talk. I didn't know who else to go to, now that John was avoiding me and seeing Brian would require going out for a drive when I never had time for that.

"Alec," I said, and he paused to look at me. "Great party last night."

He smiled, but it didn't go up to his eyes.

"Yeah, it was something, wasn't it?" he said.

"You organise those decorations yourself? They were impressive."

"Thanks, but I can't take the credit. It was all Claire's parents."

"Ah." I stopped, then moved in closer to him. "Listen, I hate to do this to you, but can I ask you something?"

"Sure, anything." He shifted the binders in his hands, and I took a few from him to prevent him from dropping any.

"What would you do if…" I tried to word my sentence carefully. "If you felt like… your love was fading?"

It sounded corny, like something out of one of the movies I watched, but he looked like he was thinking it over.

"I guess I'd try to get it back," he finally said.

"How does one go about doing that?"

"Why? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, absolutely. Just asking for…for a friend, see."

"John didn't put you up to this, did he?"

"Huh? No! No way. He doesn't even have a girlfriend."

"Oh. Well…uh… I guess I would be romantic, you know? Dinner by candlelight, an intimate setting. That kind of thing. Something that would make anyone swoon."

I nodded, mulling over my options. I wasn't a great chef, but I could cook a few dishes well. Allison had always said that she loved my risotto. I figured she'd have a few candles lying around somewhere in the kitchen drawers. That was the sort of thing she liked.

"Got it," I said, and Alec nodded.

"Anything else?"

"No, I think I'm good."

"Well, I hope it helps out your friend. Sorry I couldn't say more."

"I'm sure it'll help him out plenty. Thanks, Alec. Here."

I handed him back his binders, and he pursed his lips together as he tried to balance them on top of each other again.

"John?" I asked, referring to the large work load, and he nodded, then left.

* * *

I skipped going to the bar that night and decided to go shopping for groceries instead. I knew that if I timed myself just right, I would get home while Allison was still out and I could completely surprise her with my efforts. We didn't have many funds left for this week, but I wanted to treat her well tonight, so I spent the last of what we had on luxury rice and fresh vegetables, and a bottle of red wine to go with it.

I passed an aisle containing cookery books and stories about food lovers. I took some time to stare at all of them, suddenly intimated by the many different ways to make a dish. I ended up deciding against picking one up, favouring the family recipes I had in my mind instead.

I almost felt like I was younger again, trying to impress a fancy date who was way out of my league. But that was always how I felt about Allison. She confused me and she was complicated, which made her all the more intriguing to me.

On my way out of the supermarket, I had an afterthought to buy Allison a present she would truly appreciate as my form of apology. After being directed by an employer in the store, I found the canvases I knew she liked to paint on. Recently she had been stopping and starting new portraits every night, especially after we had fought. At least a peace offering of plain white canvases would suggest to her that I was supportive of her ever-changing mind and creative side.

Lugging myself up the stairs to our apartment with the brown bags of food in my hands was difficult, but I managed it somehow without breaking into too much of a sweat. I needed to go out for jogs more often. I had no time to think of that then, though, because upon checking the clock on the wall of the kitchen, I realised I only had a couple of hours before she would be back. Setting to work, I truly tried my hardest with my dish. I monitored the stove closely so as not to burn a single piece of rice, and didn't even open the wine, deciding to wait and offer her the first glass. Instead I had a beer from the fridge, a much cheaper option than heading to the Romany for a drink.

When I felt the dish was complete, I stared at my creation happily. I hoped she would love it. I hoped she would ask for seconds, then take me to bed and we would rekindle anything that she might have lost. It wasn't a last resort, but lately I'd been feeling desperate for some sort of improvement. Something to keep her from waking us both up to paint in the night with the light on.

I used the extra time to set our cheap table as fancily as I could. I used an old bed sheet as the cover, as it was all we had, and picked out the best cutlery I could find in our drawers. I set the risotto in the middle, then our plates and glasses around it, along with the wine and a few odd candles. I felt I had outdone myself. I finished my beer in congratulations, then sat in my seat, conveniently placed so I could watch the door. I wanted to see her face when she walked into our apartment and found my surprise.

I realised she was running late when it was getting on for 10 and she hadn't returned yet. On any other day I would've been worried for her, wondering if something had happened during her walk home, but tonight I was just growing impatient. I ended up opening the wine and pouring myself a glass.

I finished that, and she still wasn't home.

A second glass gone, and I was in the kitchen searching for any odd cigarettes I had lying around from the days when I used to smoke regularly with John. I glanced up at the wall clock quickly and saw that it was now almost 11, and I slammed the drawer aggressively, making the contents smash against each other loudly.

The food had gone cold, and the candles had burned out, and I felt like I had wasted it all. I had no way of finding out where she was, other than marching down to her school and demanding to know what time she had left and where she had gone, but Allison herself answered my question when she stumbled through the front door a few minutes later. She threw her keys down on the table as she always did, but this time she was more clumsy and she giggled at the sound they made against the wood. Allison never giggled like that usually. She was drunk.

She took a moment to adjust to the room, the wax on the table from the candles and the half empty bottle of wine. The crockery pot in the middle full of cold food that had probably gone bad now, and me sat facing her, gripping onto the edge of the table with resentment on my face. Her smile fell. I no longer cared.

"Where have you been?" I asked, my tone sounding more forceful than I had intended. I was trying to keep my temper cool, but I'd always had problems with it.

"Who are you, my father?" she asked, walking towards the table and grabbing at the bottle of wine before I could take it away from her. She opened it and started drinking from it like it was completely natural.

"Where have you been?" I asked again. She lowered the bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"At class."

"You don't come back from class this late. Where did you go after class?"

"Why do you care so much?" She rolled her eyes and started walking away from me, hiccuping as she went.

"I care because I made dinner for us. I got home early from work, and made us dinner, and then I sat here waiting for you like some sort of…some sort of idiot." I stood up from my chair, following her into the kitchen.

"Well, now you know how I feel." She spun to face me, her every movement exaggerated.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't think I wait for you to get home from work? Oh, I wait. But you get in every night late because you go out drinking. So I stopped waiting. You should stop waiting, too."

"Have you been out drinking?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Answer my damn questions, Allison. Where the hell have you been?"

"Out."

"I know that. Where have you been exactly?"

"Drinking."

I gritted my teeth, my jaw clenching.

"For fuck sake, Allison. Answer me properly."

"Fine, I've been out at the Romany, expecting to see you there, but you weren't there. Neither was John."

"So you were alone?"

"No."

"Then who were you with?"

She pressed her lips together, and moved passed me, skirting out of my way constantly. If I was going to get her to answer any of my questions tonight, I would have to practical tie her down.

"Tell me," I spoke again, turning to look at her as she separated herself from me with the couch.

"People from class."

"Who from class?"

"No one." She laughed again, like this was some sort of game to her. By now, I was seething.

"Who from class?" I repeated again, my voice louder now.

"Why does it matter? Why do you care? You go out every night to the bar with who knows and I never get to question you on it."

"Does that mean what I think it means? Are you kidding right now? I go to the bar with John, you know that. John is the only one I go with."

"Not always. Don't lie to me."

"I only ever go to bars with guys, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, well, so do I," she said.

"Huh?"

She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly distracted by a knot she found in it. I moved towards her and she looked up at me with wide eyes.

"Fine, if you must know, I was with Ricardo," she said.

I frowned.

"Who the fuck is Ricardo?"

"My friend from art class."

"And does Ricardo know that you have a boyfriend, Al?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Why does it…? Oh, you've got to be joking right now. Are you being serious?"

"What?"

"It matters, Allison, because I don't want you going to bars alone with other men. Who asked who to the bar?"

"He asked me. We finished our work and wanted to celebrate."

I shook my head at her, in disbelief.

"All this time, I've been going crazy thinking I've been doing something wrong because you barely touch me anymore. Is this the reason why?"

"Is this really still the same argument about me not having sex with you?" she suddenly yelled, her eyes now showing how furious she was.

"It's a valid argument!"

"No, it's not. Why does everything have to be about sex with you? Do you ever suppose it's because you're never home early? You always come home late when I'm tired and want to go to bed. I don't want to have sex then, that's all it is."

"You reject me as well, don't forget that. I'm not the only one at fault here."

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry I keep rejecting you, Andy. I didn't realise that the world's biggest crime was not wanting to have sex with you. I'm so terribly sorry!" she shouted at me, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"That's what normal couples do, Allison!"

"I don't know anything about normal. You bought into that when we started dating."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I wonder what the fuck I was thinking."

My statement hung in the air as Allison refused to respond to it, choosing instead to just look at me, wide eyed and tearful. She looked like she was red with anger, and I knew I probably did, too. I also knew that I couldn't stay here a moment longer.

"Go to bed, Allison. I'm going out." I went to grab my jacket and my car keys.

"To the bar?"

"Of course, because that's the only place in the world I can go according to you. Also according to you, I go with my many female companions and have a fantastic time while my girlfriend sits at home playing the victim and waiting for me. So in walks Italian-Stallion Ricardo to save the day and whisk her away. Isn't that just a fairy tale ending?"

I hastily put my jacket on as Allison took hers off, making it evident that no matter where I chose to go, she was staying here. I began towards the front door, looking at her for the last time before I turned. As I was leaving, I heard her speak from behind me.

"Ricardo isn't Italian. He's spanish!" she called.

"I don't give a fuck!" I yelled back, and slammed the door behind me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Brian.**

I had been rewriting my college essay over and over again throughout the course of the whole summer, but I couldn't get it to sound just right. I wanted to come across as knowledgeable and extremely intelligent, while still remaining humorous and down-to-earth. It was a feat that I had not yet mastered.

In all my writing and processing, I had accidentally shut myself off to everyone. A few times over the summer I had been asked out to the bar by the guys, but I had refused to go each time, so they stopped asking. Claire had only been to see me once, confessing that Alec truly didn't like her spending so much time on her own with me, so the visits stopped. The only time I saw my friends anymore were at pre-arranged events, such as Claire's engagement party. Although it was awful, I knew that I probably wouldn't see them again until the actual wedding. In fact, I probably wouldn't leave my house before then.

For a long while I had wondered if there was something truly wrong with me, with the way that I thought. I knew I was bright and hardworking; my career in academics reflected that. But every day I woke up with something else added to the list of my worries. I found myself staring at my reflection in shiny surfaces, picking out faults in my being and then trying to go and correct them. I figured that was healthy. I was negative, but at least I tried to do something about it.

I thought of it like my essay. I was so negative about the words on the paper, crossing them out and throwing them away, but at least I kept on trying. At least I wasn't like Alec, who would leave the paper until the last minute and get a mediocre grade from our professor. I wanted the highest, or nothing at all. I couldn't stand any sort of failure, no matter how hard I or anyone around me tried to change that.

It came as a surprise when Andy knocked on my door that night. My mom had answered, because I was now back at the family home having outstayed my welcome at Claire's. She called up to me from the bottom of the stairs and then left Andy standing in the doorway on his own, going back to watching TV in the living room, while my dad stayed working at the kitchen table. I knew they didn't want to pass each other in the hall and have to be seen together. They hated being in the same room nowadays.

I rushed down the stairs to the front door, abandoning my work on the table to come see who was calling for me at such a late hour. When I could see the open doorway in sight I saw Andy leaning against the door frame with his arm. His face was red and his eyes were puffy, and I wasn't sure if he had been crying or smoking something. He smiled slightly when he saw me, and stood up straight.

"Andy, what are you doing here?" I asked, inviting him in and closing the door behind him.

"Hello to you too, Bri," he said, beginning to remove his jacket.

"Sorry, hello. Let me hang that up for you." I took the clothing from him and put it away on our coat rack. When I turned back to Andy, he had buried his hands into his pockets in a fashion that made him look uncomfortable and insecure. He reminded me of myself.

"Is everything okay?" I pushed the matter again, even more curious to know why he was here. Andy sniffed, and looked at me.

"Uh… Can we go to your room or something?"

I nodded, and began to lead the way up the stairs. I realised as we were walking into my room that Andy had never been inside my house before. I watched him as he looked around at the surprisingly minimal space that I was residing in. Before I left for college I had taken down all of my old posters and put my old things into boxes, to try and give the room a mature feel. Instead it just felt empty and lacking. I sat down on the chair to my desk, and offered him a seat on my bed. He kicked off his shoes, than sat back, as if it was the most natural thing to him in the world.

"So are you going to tell me, or do I have to coax this out of you?" I asked. Andy laughed, but then sighed and sat up again.

"I think Allison is cheating on me."

"What?"

"I know, it sounds crazy."

"Why do you think that?"

"It's been going on for a while. I think she resents the fact I get home from work so late. But sometimes I just get out the office late, you know? Sometimes I go to the bar, but most times I'm working overtime because I need to get stuff done."

He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I just nodded and let him carry on talking.

"So she starts breaking away from me. At least, it feels like that. Every time I'd try to take her to bed with me, she'd tell me she doesn't want to, or she's tired. I didn't think anything of it at first, but then I realised how long it had been since we had… you know…"

"Sex?" I mouthed at him, and he nodded, a grim look on his face.

"She just never wants to do anything anymore. And then she started her art class, and that was a bad idea. I know it's her dream, but she even asked me if it was okay before she started. I should've just said no, then this wouldn't have happened."

"Wait, what does her art classes have to do with her cheating?"

"She's friends with a guy at the class, Ricardo, or something. Italian. Or Spanish. I can't remember. She never told me about him until tonight, but they seem pretty pally. But before I knew about him, I decided I wanted to do something nice for her, you know? I felt like I was somehow losing her, not wanting to jump to cheating. So I decided to make her a nice meal. Alec told me she'd like it. So I made the food, bought wine, got candles and all that shit. I waited for her to get home, but she didn't get back on time. I was so worried about her, I didn't know what to do. Then in she comes 3 hours late, drunk and being absolutely ridiculous. You know where she was? At a bar with Ricardo."

"Wow," was all I could say.

"I know, right? So I start questioning her, and she's yelling at me that I'm always at the bar and she's always waiting for me at home, so now I knew what it was like, something like that. And I'm saying, yeah, but at least I'm not at the bar with other girls. Just John. And last I checked, he's definitely no competition for Allison." He paused, dropping his hands that had been animated the whole time he spoke. "I just… I love her so much, you know? I hate this. I don't know what to do, or what I've done wrong to deserve this…" He crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at me, seeking some sort of response.

I moved from my desk chair and took a seat on the bed next to him.

"I don't know much about relationships, but I think if I were you, I would listen to her and not go to the bar so much. Maybe she's using that guy because you're not around as much as she's used to?"

"That's a pathetic excuse to cheat."

"You don't know that she's definitely cheating, though."

"Yeah, I guess."

"So, don't think like that right now until you have the conformation before you. You should talk to her properly about how she's feeling, no shouting, see if she's okay. Allison has always been complicated like that. She's an island unto herself, remember? It takes a lot to coax anything out of her."

Andy nodded, knowing that I was right even though I wasn't so sure myself. For some reason, everyone always sought me out like I was the voice of reason for all of their life's problems. I couldn't help everyone in the world, but I tried. I focused more on other people's problems than my own sometimes.

We both stared at the blank wall opposite my bed. If Andy had been Claire, I would've hugged him, but because he was who he was, I knew better than to even attempt that. I had a feeling that Andy hated even showing up here, because it dented all of his pride. Worse still that his eyes gave away the fact he'd been crying. Him and John were very similar in that they didn't like to discuss delicate things like emotions and feelings, and sometimes I disliked that about them. Sometimes I figured they just passed me off as too sensitive because I wasn't afraid of that stuff.

"Thanks, Brian," Andy suddenly said.

"What for?"

"Talking to me about this. You were the first person I came to see."

"I'm surprised you remembered the way to my house."

"Please, I dropped you off so many times when I got my first car. Sometimes I did it just as an excuse to drive it."

"And not out of the pure love of my friendship?" I joked, and he elbowed me in the arm.

"Brian?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you've never had a girlfriend?"

I frowned. The question had come out of nowhere, and I didn't know how to respond to it. I knew my friends all had tried to answer it before. There were suggestions of me being gay, or in love with my best girl friends, or asexual; though all were suggested behind my back. I never told them the true reason, and I don't think I ever wanted to. Confessing to not wanting to love someone else, because you had never loved yourself, was heavy for even my closest friends to take on. So I made the answer up.

"If I tell you, you can't tell anybody. Alright?"

"Alright."

I shifted and turned myself on the bed, sitting cross legged and facing him.

"The truth is… I'm in love with my teacher at college. Hopelessly in love, for the past 4 years."

Andy laughed, and hit me gently on the arm.

"Alright, Bri, hot for teacher!"

"She's more than that. She's just… she's something alright. She's really great."

I never told him that my teacher was really a male in his 50s. He never asked, I never told.

Andy got up from my bed, and walked over to my window to look out of it. I watched him as he went. Outside was dark, but our backyard was lit up by a light and showed in clear view how bare it was. Just grass and a wooden fence surrounding it, a few odd balls dotted around from my childhood that had since been neglected. Andy turned around and looked at me.

"You any good at playing ball?" he asked.

"I don't think I even know what that means."

Andy grinned.

"I'll show you how to be really good at it. Come outside and I'll show you."

So we headed outside at midnight to play in the garden like we were still 10 years old.

Andy showed me how to curve the ball to throw off opponents, and how to fake a right then really go left, but mostly we just threw it back and forth, as hard as we could but not so hard that the other couldn't catch it. I felt like Andy wanted to do something more, take his stress out by doing this with more experienced athletes like he once was, but I was all he had right now.

I really started to enjoy myself eventually. Growing up, I'd never been big on sports. I always thought my dad had resented it, because I never cared about any of the teams or became invested in the players. I would watch the sports on TV with him, but I would be bored the whole time and barely pay attention. Eventually he stopped asking me to watch them with him.

When high school came, I found physical education to be the lesson I dreaded the most. It separated the strong from the weak, making us easy targets. Every lesson I was tormented, laughed at for missing strikes or dropping the ball. I think I got so nervous that it made me even worse. But playing catch with Andy was so impromptu and casual, I felt no pressure to be perfect with it. He didn't chastise me whenever I missed or dropped anything, he just wanted me to do well. For a while, I wanted myself to do well as well. It was what those sports classes should have been like. It was what my whole life should have been like. Fun and no pressure. But it had never been that easy.

I don't know how long we carried it on into the night, but we lost track until my sister appeared at the back door in her pyjamas.

"Hey, Sarah," I said, throwing the ball back to Andy as I did so. That was as skilled as I got with it. My sister glared back at me, in the way that 15 year olds tended to do.

"Mom says you have to stop now. She wants to go to bed. And so do I," she said. Andy held the ball still, and looked over at me. I shrugged, and accepted it.

"Sure thing. Sorry for keeping you up," Andy said.

Sarah just glared harder at him.

"You two are both such weirdos. You're both, what, 25, and you're outside chucking an old ball around. Don't you have jobs and lives?"

"Goodnight, Sarah," I said, urging her to leave us alone. She grunted, and then disappeared back inside. I looked over at Andy and found him looking at me, trying to hold in his laughter.

"Guess I'll be heading off now," he said when he had stopped laughing, and he threw the ball back to me. I shook my head.

"No, stay the night if you want. We have room."

"You don't mind?"

"Well, that's what you came here for, isn't it? I'm sure your main motive wasn't just to chuck a ball around in my yard."

"You got me," he smiled, then looked at me more seriously. "Thanks, I owe you one."

"Don't worry about it."

We finally settled down for bed soon after, both suddenly feeling tired and worn out from running around. I almost completely forgot about my previous burning need to finish my essay. If it had been any other night, I would've gotten up and worked at it at my desk. But with Andy asleep on my bedroom floor and my eyes drooping, I told myself to put it off another night. I just didn't know at the time whether that was a good or bad idea.


	11. Chapter 11

_**An extra long chapter for you guys today, as I'm on a 10 hour flight tomorrow so probably won't have enough time to get anything published. Hopefully the next chapter will be up on Sunday or early next week. Thanks for the reviews! **_

* * *

**Claire.**

One morning I was awoken by my mother's newest maid and told that I had to get up to go wedding dress shopping. I checked the time on my bedside clock and it read 9am. Leaving Alec in bed alone, I dressed quickly and ran a brush through my hair, deciding that leaving it down would have to do. Despite the occasion, I knew the way my hair looked, or how I'd done my makeup, wouldn't really matter. It wouldn't alter how hideous or how nice I looked in a wedding dress. I just didn't feel like bothering.

My mother made us take a driver to go shopping in the town centre, which seemed far too dramatic and over the top to me. She had told me that I'd be thankful for it by the end of our trip, when we would no doubt be too tired to walk home or drive ourselves, but I just felt like it was an excuse for her to show off and treat herself, and avoid getting the bus at all costs. Nothing looked more classy than stepping out of a car aided by a driver in formal attire.

Shopping in Shermer didn't ever have too much to offer but my mom insisted that we went into Bridal Beauties Boutique on the main street because that was where she had bought her wedding dress from. Hers had been an awful flowing number, cream with little pearls on the neckline. I definitely didn't want anything like that. But I knew I probably wouldn't win a fight over it with my mother, as she started pointing to various oversized skirts and puff sleeved bodices displayed in the store window.

We went inside the building, and the woman at the desk came over to us. Apparently she knew my mother.

"Rossy, darling!" she called, her voice as loud as her bright blue eye makeup.

"Mary, it's been far too long!" my mother replied, giving air kisses to the woman.

"Oh, but you look just as fabulous as always!"

My mother laughed strangely, and I recognised it as her fake laugh. I suddenly knew why it had been so long since she had seen Mary; my mother didn't like her.

"Well, I look alright," she underplayed herself, shrugging her shoulder theatrically. Then she took me by my shoulders and thrust me towards Mary. "This is my daughter, Claire. She's come today to find her wedding dress."

I smiled at Mary as best I could. I wasn't sure if it was because of my lack of breakfast this morning or too much wine at dinner last night, but I didn't feel so great.

"Oh, we've just got wonderful new pieces in. Fresh from the summer/fall '89 catalogue!" Mary told me.

"Perfect," my mother responded for me.

I just carried on looking at them both with my plastered on smile.

"I'll take your measurements, Claire, and then we can start the fitting. Heavens, look at your slender little waist! You're going to look _fabulous_!"

I was taken into another room that was large and circular, with changing rooms to the side. There was a wall of mirrors and in the middle was a podium, which Mary immediately led me to.

Some time later, I was fitted into my first dress. The neckline was low, more suited to a much more ample woman than I was. Unfortunately, I still had a chest that made me look like a 12 year old boy, so it looked ridiculous and it gaped dramatically, almost exposing my bare chest to the world.

Mary tutted at the sight, and made me try something else.

The next one was tight all over, except for at the knees where it flared out widely with netting. Its straps were low on my arms, giving it what Mary had described as a 'Parisian' look. As I turned and looked at myself in the mirror, I found myself actually quite liking it. It was trendy and modern, not at all like my mother's dress.

"I don't like it," my mother suddenly said, getting up from her seat. She inspected me all around, touching and prodding at the dress in various places, but a look of disgust remained on her face. I pulled at the dress to try to make it feel comfortable on my body again, but with my mother's disapproval, I just couldn't.

"Not to worry, there's plenty more to try," Mary said quickly, obviously very much wanting our business.

They always said third time was a charm. I never knew who 'they' was, but the saying rang true for my mother. When I exited the changing room with the next dress on, she clapped her hands together and gasped at the sight of me. Mary was smiling brightly at the both of us. I stepped onto the stand and into the light, and got a good look at myself in the mirror as Mary began zipping the clothing up the rest of my back where I couldn't reach.

The dress was definitely something. It had long lace sleeves that puffed out at the shoulders, making me look broad and emphasising my boyish figure. It was not low cut like the others; instead it went up to my neck in intricate lace design. The detail was beautiful, but with it all together it looked cluttered and messy. It had a long train that would probably require all of my bridesmaids to hold on to it to prevent me from tripping on the big day.

My mother stepped forward towards me. Her eyes were watering.

"Oh, Claire, darling," you look beautiful," she said quietly, looking at me in the mirror as I looked back at myself. I nodded, but didn't feel it. I felt stupid and childish.

"You remind me so much of myself when I was younger," my mother carried on, reaching into her purse to fetch out tissues to dab at her eyes, so as to prevent her makeup from running.

"I do?" I asked, turning and looking down at her. She nodded.

"So much so. So young and beautiful. I had a figure like yours once." She put her hand on the sleeve of my dress, feeling the puffs. "You may not think it now, but your wedding day will be the best day of your life. I promise you."

I was confused my her statement. Did she know that I was feeling unsure now of the whole ordeal?

I loved Alec, but going through all the things my parents had forced on us so far had been a nightmare. Alec was a good man, the best I had ever known, but he showed intentions of listening to my father, forcing me along with him. He always looked out for me, tried to do what was best. That was the problem.

I wanted to ask my mother what she had meant, mostly whether she had been second-guessing things as well during the lead up to her own wedding. I wanted to know that it was a normal thing, that I wasn't a horrible person. A daughter wanted her mother's advice. But then Mary re-entered the room, having gone in search of more wedding dresses in my size (which, it turned out, was not a very popular one on account of the lack of boobs).

"Heavens, Claire, that's the dress!" she said.

My mother stepped away from me to let Mary inspect the fit, and the moment was lost. At least my wedding dress had been found, though.

* * *

Drinks with my old high school friends had gone as I had expected. Steff had arranged it, calling me first to find out what day I was free, then talking to the others. They had taken to calling it my bachelorette party, and every time they went up to the bar to get us more drinks, they reminded the bartender and everyone else who would listen. Despite all the years it had been since we'd seen each other and properly hung out, they had remained the same. Flirtatious and gorgeous, just the same as they had been in high school. They were also just as spiteful, and sneered at the men who paid too much attention to them.

I wanted to think I was worlds apart from them, having been around people that brought me down to earth again, but as the night went on I started thinking that we were really all the same as we had always been.

Benny had always loved parties when we were younger. She was the one who got us invited at the weekends, even at houses of people that didn't go to our school. That night she was always the first to finish her drinks, meaning she spent more time ordering at the bar than sitting and talking with us.

Heather had married the year she left high school to her then-boyfriend. I didn't remember him well, not even his name, but she told me it was just as well because she had divorced him a year later and was now part of an affair with a married lawyer. I knocked back my drink when she told me that, but she said if I was worried about the same happening to me and Alec, I shouldn't. She somehow knew we would stay together.

Steff had always been the kindest to me out of all of them. She stayed by my side all night, chatting to me about the college she had graduated from this past May, and the things she had done while there. Steff's family were even more well off than mine, and often funded her extravagant trips around the globe that she told me about happily. It made me envious how well travelled she was, how much she had seen in such a short time. She insisted that the next time she went away, we would go together. I told her I would definitely take her up on the offer.

"I wouldn't say I'm addicted to having a relationship," Heather told Benny, as they bickered jokingly about her constantly 'taken' relationship status. "I'd say I'm more addicted to the sex."

"Yeah, well you were always that way at Shermer," I said, laughing along with the rest of them.

Heather nodded, taking a drag from her cigarette.

"It's so true. I was such a slut."

"I think we all were," Steff said, shaking her head. "I can't believe it. I can't even count how many people I've had it with on two hands."

"People?" Benny said.

"Well, when in Rome…" Steff giggled, and we all laughed along, not wanting to go into more detail.

"I think the only one out of all of us who wasn't a giant slut was you, Claire," Heather suddenly said. I smiled, not knowing whether to respond or not. I knew it was true; I had always been a prude, and they had all been loose.

"I always thought you'd get married first, not Heather. Married and _then_ have sex. But Alec is so yummy, I bet you didn't want to wait," Benny said, leaning into the table and grinning at me.

Heather breathed out another puff of smoke, then passed her lighter along to Benny who had just got a cigarette out for herself.

"Alec wasn't her first boyfriend, though," she said.

"No, you're right," I said, really hoping this wasn't going where I thought it was.

"Wait, who was her first boyfriend?" Steff asked.

"John Bender!" Benny said, way too loudly, and they all burst into fits of laughter.

"I remember now! He was at the engagement party, wasn't he? God, he was a mess in school, but he cleans up well," Heather said.

"John's changed a lot," I offered.

"You got that right. But he wasn't so bad at high school. I liked the rugged look."

"You told me you all hated him at the time!" I said.

"That's because he was an ass to all of us. He had such a horrible attitude," said Steff. The other two girls nodded.

"Well, he's changed."

"Why are you defending him?" Heather asked, and I paused. Why was I defending him? I had nothing to gain from doing that. I shrugged my shoulders.

"I just don't want you ragging on my first ever boyfriend," I said, as if it was nothing.

"Was he the first ever guy you…" Benny stopped, then acted out putting her finger through a hole she made with her other fingers. The other girls cackled with laughter, and I laughed too, but felt extremely embarrassed at the same time.

"I don't kiss and tell!"

"Oh, go on, we're your best friends!"

I smiled. They weren't. But the thought was nice.

"Yeah, he was," I finally admitted. They all made 'ooh' noises, then seemed to grow bored with the conversation and moved on to talk about being my bridesmaids. My mother had insisted that I gave them the roles, saying that it would make the wedding even more aesthetically pleasing. I had wanted to ask Allison, but my mother said she could be a flower girl or give out the programs instead. I just told her I wouldn't bother.

The girls were on their 3rd, 4th drinks, and I had barely finished my 2nd. I was no longer in the mood for it, my evening ruined by the conversation about John and me. It was a sure fire way to put a downer on everything.

"Claire, are you alright?" Steff whispered in my ear as she put her arm around me, trying not to alert the other girls that something was wrong.

"I'm fine, I just don't feel so good," I said.

"Don't drink anymore, it won't help."

"Thanks, I won't."

Steff went back to talking. Despite her being the nicest, she didn't want to miss out on having fun herself. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to hear about their matching dresses and hair accessories, or their plans to dye a streak of their hair ginger in honour of my own red hair. I just wanted to leave.

I stood up from the table, grabbing my purse as I did.

"I'm sorry, guys, I feel a bit queasy. I'm going to go to the bathroom," I said.

As I left, I heard Heather ask the two other girls loudly: "You don't suppose she's pregnant, do you?"

I took one of the doors out into the corridor we had entered through, and began walking towards the women's toilets. On the way into the bar I had noticed a pay-phone on the wall, so I walked towards it and started slotting coins in it to pay for the call I was about to make.

I knew I should've called Alec to come pick me up, but my fingers quickly dialled a number and I didn't realise who I was calling until someone picked up the phone.

"Yeah?" a woman's voice said. It sounded dry and husky, like she had smoked cigarettes all her life.

It was John's mother.

I realised then my mistake of calling his home number when he didn't even live in his old home anymore. Just his parents lived there now, the same as they always had been; absolutely awful. I quickly hung up, and cursed myself under my breath. Of course he wouldn't be there.

Why did I even want to speak to him?

I still had a few quarters left in the machine, so I tried a different number. This time another female picked up, and I recognised the voice as being Allison's. Thank god she was at home.

"Hello?" she said, something sounding off in her voice, as if she was panicked or upset.

"Allison? It's Claire. Are you okay?" I asked, distracted by it.

"I'm fine. Are you?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Actually, I'm not. This is going to sound so stupid and weird, but do you know where I would find John tonight?"

"Huh?" She was obviously as taken aback by the question as I had been.

"I need to talk to him."

"Oh. Well, I guess you could try at the Romany. God knows everyone and their mother is always there." In the background, I heard Andy say something loudly. I must have caught them in the middle of a fight.

"Thanks, Allison, I'll try it. And if you need to talk…"

"It's fine, Claire. I've got to go."

She hung up the phone, leaving me with just the beeping tone, alone in the corridor.

I headed out back to the table a few minutes later.

"I called Alec while I was out in the bathroom. He's come to pick me up. He's outside now," I told them.

"Aw, no fun!" Heather said. Steff stood to give me a hug goodbye, and they all followed after her.

"I'm sorry, guys, wedding planning is tiring."

"I know the feeling," Heather said, and Benny elbowed her.

"Well, I guess we'll see you on the big day!" Steff said.

"Yeah," I said. My reply had come out weak, but I doubted they would notice in such a noisy and crowded room. I left back to the door shortly after.

I needed a sense of normalcy right now. Someone who wouldn't talk to me about the weather on the wedding day, or the colour theme, or tell me how perfect Alec was for me. I needed someone who could talk to me about anything but the wedding, make me feel sane and humble again, like I was still my own person and not so attached. I wanted to just be Claire, not _the_ Claire Standish, engaged and supposedly happy. John was the only person I knew who could offer me that.

I left the bar and walking into the street, looking out at the road as if trying to fool myself that Alec really was picking me up. In the distance I could see the glow of the neon Romany sign seemingly guiding the way forward. I sighed, and followed it.

Along the way, I passed a man sitting on the floor of the sidewalk. I kept my head down to avoid him, but couldn't help but glance as I passed. He met my eyes.

"What's a pretty little thing doing alone on a night like this?" he called after me.

I ignored him.

"Aw, why you gotta walk away from me?" he spoke again.

By now, I was already distancing myself from him.

"At least let me buy you a drink, sweets!"

I made my escape by walking into the Romany.

Whenever I entered the place, I always expected it to be packed, and tonight was no exception. I began trying to squeeze through the crowd, having to full on push one man out the way when he seemed so hell bent to stay still that I couldn't get through. When I made it to the bar, I rested my hand on it and stood on my tip toes to look around the room in search of the man I had come here to see. I checked the usual table, but someone else was sitting in the seats, and he wasn't by the stage. When I had almost given up, figuring he was just at home tonight, I looked at the bar just across from where I was. There John was, drinking a beer, and flicking around an empty packet of nuts. He looked bored out of his mind, and he was alone. I made my way to approach him.

I took a seat beside him, but he didn't notice me.

"Hey," I said, leaning in so he could hear me. When he finally looked up, I sat back again and watched as he frowned at me, clearly confused. I knew I would feel confused too if I had been in his position.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, putting his beer down on the bar and turning around in his chair to face me more.

I shrugged my shoulders at him.

"I was out with my old friends from high school a few bars down. I figured I'd find you here."

"Oh, you mean bitchy 1, 2 and 3?"

I playfully hit his shoulder, but couldn't stop myself from smiling at the name. He smiled, too.

"You want a drink?" he asked.

"Sure. I'll have a…uh…cranberry and soda."

He snorted at my choice.

"Cranberry and soda? Come on, Princess, you're in a bar."

"Cranberry and vodka?"

He raised his eyebrows at me.

"What happened to the girl who used to finish my beers for me because she liked the taste?"

"Fine. I'll have a beer, then!" I said, finally admitting defeat. He grinned at me, and called the bartender over to get 2 beers for both of us. When we were served our drinks, he picked his up and raised it towards me. I responded by raising mine back, clinking our glasses together, then we drank. I took it away from my lips afterward, pulling a face.

"I'd forgotten what this tasted like," I said. "I'm not sure if I like it anymore."

"College really did change you, huh?"

"Oh, please. I just refined my tastes."

"Yeah, I can see that."

We looked at each other; I broke eye contact first.

"So what are you really doing here?" he asked me. I sighed, not looking back up at him, looking down at my bottle instead.

"I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment."

"Why's that?"

"Wedding stuff."

"Oh," he said, not commenting further.

"Sorry. I didn't want to mention it."

"Why not? You're getting married. That's a thing now, apparently."

"Let's talk about something else," I said quickly, finally looking back at him.

"Like what?"

I thought for a moment, then smiled as I remembered something.

"Remember that time we stole my dad's car?"

"What about it?"

"It was around this time during our last summer together. You called me spoilt because I refused to drive the car they got me for my 16th birthday, but we wanted to go somewhere and the car was in the garage."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't let me drive."

"That's because you couldn't drive!"

"Please. I would've been great. I still can't drive, though. Legally, at least."

"It was a nice drive, though," I said.

John paused, leaning in to me now as he spoke.

"You remember what we did when we stopped the car?"

I shook my head.

"Well, I climbed in the back," he carried on, "and told you to join me. When you tried to climb like I did, you fell and bumped your head."

I was smiling again now, remembering it.

"So I helped you get back up, and I examined your head. Then we…er… Well." He raised his eyebrows and whistled, as if to suggest something.

"I don't remember that," I said.

"You leaned in to kiss me, to thank me. And then we had sex in the backseat of the car. You remember that?" His voice was deep and sounding husky, and I realised just how close he had gotten to me while he told the story. I felt hot, uncomfortably so, not the nice kind.

"I…No…" I stuttered.

"Come on, Claire. Don't tell me you forgot the most important part? You told me it was the best you'd ever had, because it felt so bad…"

"John," I whispered, watching as he leaned in even closer to me.

He didn't stop moving, and I could smell him again as he drew even nearer. I looked over the features of his face, up close again for the first time since I was a teenager. His skin was tan and as rough as it had always been, despite him being completely clean shaven. His brown eyes were staring into my own, and as I watched his close, mine fluttered shut in response. It was only when his lips were almost touching mine that I realised what was happening and moved my head away from him, not allowing myself to let it happen.

John breathed out harshly, then moved his head back as well, refusing to turn back to look at me.

"What the fuck do you want from me, Claire?" he said, his voice no longer soft, but now sounding angry. I didn't say anything, and he finally looked up at me. "You come here, telling me you were looking for me, and then start telling me stories about when we were still together? Coincidentally one that ended in us doing something so intimate… Especially after what I told you last time I saw you… Fuck, Claire. I don't know what you want from me. But if this is one of your mind games, I'm not playing this time."

"It's not like that. I'm not playing a mind game. I just…"

"Just what?"

"I can't cheat on Alec. I'm not a cheater."

"Oh, and what? I'm the bad guy here?"

"You're the one who tried to kiss me."

"Well, you're the one who came looking for your ex-boyfriend, not the other way around."

He grabbed his beer and began to drink from it quickly, nearly finishing the bottle. I ran a hand through my hair, turning away from him and looking around the room as if looking now for an escape. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him staring down at the bar, no longer looking angry, but now sad.

"I'm sorry, John," I said.

"Don't do this to me anymore, alright? You know how I feel. You told me you felt nothing. So don't do this again."

"I just wanted to talk to someone who kept me sane."

"Well, right now I'm talking to someone who makes me insane."

"I didn't know."

"Yeah, you never do." He watched as the bartender came to take away his empty drink, then glanced over at me. "I'm going to San Diego next week."

"You took the job?"

"Yeah. There's nothing left for me here anymore."

"That's not completely true."

"Either way, I'm going. I'm leaving this town for good."

I bit my lip. I didn't know how to feel about any of this.

"Will you keep in touch?" I asked him.

"What good will that do?"

"I…I don't know."

I knew then that I didn't want him to go, never wanted him to leave. I always wanted to know he was there, still the boy in Shermer I once loved so much. Maybe this all was a mind game. I didn't know who's mind it was affecting the most, though; his or mine.

"You know, Claire, if you love Alec so much that you won't cheat on him, then why are you here with me?" John suddenly asked me.

"I'm not sure," I admitted.

"Look, as much as I hate the guy, and I really hate him, this isn't fair on him. Believe me, I want you to stay here so badly that sometimes it fucking hurts, but I think you should go home now."

I stood up from the barstool.

"You want to share a cab?" he asked, "I gotta make sure you get home, at the very least."

I nodded, and we left the building together.

John hailed a cab quickly, as this time of night and this part of town was the best business for the drivers. We both climbed in the back, him letting me go first, and then he told the driver the address of my parent's house.

We sat in silence for a while. I watched out the window as the town lights began to fade and we moved into the residential areas, nearing my own home. I was half aware of John sometimes glancing over at me, but he never said anything.

Finally, I allowed myself to look back at him.

"I probably won't see you again before I go to San Diego," he said, keeping our voices down in front of the driver.

"You're not coming to the wedding?"

"You think I would anyway?"

It was a good point.

"My flight is on the 30th," he said.

"Wow… I didn't realise how soon it was."

"You forget that you encouraged me to accept it. You told me…"

"I know what I said," I suddenly snapped, sick of having all this blame put on me. "I'm not a bad person, John. I don't care what you've imagined up in your mind since we separated. We fought all the time over stupid things and I knew I couldn't live like that. I'm not some bitch who always nagged at you and told you what to do."

"I'm sorry," he said, a word I'd never heard him use before. I didn't know what he was referring to; tonight, or in general.

"What?" It had caught me off guard.

"I'm not going to repeat it. You heard me."

Well, it had been a start, at least.

"I'm sorry, too," I said. "I have been every day since."

"Yeah, me too."

The car stopped at the top of my driveway, and I looked back at John almost wishing the drive had been longer.

"Guess this is my stop," I said quietly.

"I guess so," he said back. He looked like he was glaring, not at me, but at my house.

"Hey, John," I said, and he looked at me. Carefully, so as not to make anything inappropriate, I leaned in and pecked him on his cheek. As I pulled away, I saw that the hole in his ear had closed up, the earring long gone. I looked back at him when I was back in my seat, his eyes were wide as he stared at me.

"I guess you got rid of that old earring?" I said.

He didn't say anything, just held up the sleeve of his jacket and showed me where his cufflink was. I recognised it immediately as the old diamond. Something caught in my throat, and I couldn't look at him again.

"I hope San Diego treats you well," I said, then exited the car before the cab driver could complain at us for holding him up. I didn't turn to look back as I walked down the drive, wishing it was easy for me to let John go in the same way. But he had come back into my life again, and he never made anything that easy for me. I bit down on my tongue hard to prevent myself from crying, feeling like I was 18 and he was leaving me again.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Author note: As promised!**_

* * *

**John.**

I didn't want to stop watching Claire as she walked back towards her house. The lights were off in every window, except for the porch and the living room. But before she had gone inside, the cab driver started up the engine and the meter again, and started to drive away.

"Where to?" he asked me, and I reluctantly gave him the address of my apartment.

As we drove away, I couldn't help but turn to look out the back window, watching Claire's figure grow smaller and smaller as the car went on.

"That your girlfriend?" the cab driver spoke again.

"Used to be," I said, turning back to sit in my seat properly.

"If I were you, I would never have let a girl like that go."

I ignored him for the rest of the journey.

We reached my street not too long after, and I told him I'd be fine to walk the rest of the way. There was never any parking along the road anyway. I paid the fare, which was more than it usually was because of the detour we had taken to the richer estate of Shermer. I waved the driver off as he went on his way.

Inside my apartment, I was reminded of everything I hated about my life. It had always been a small place, each room looking even smaller with all of the things I kept around. My table was always cluttered and my bed was pushed up to the wall because that was the only way I could fit a double in.

I walked to the fridge and took out the last beer from my 8 pack. I drank it quickly, not stopping to savour the taste. I didn't want to, I just wanted to feel the numbness that so many drinks always caused. I didn't want to feel anything anymore, because every time I let myself do that, I always got hurt.

I couldn't stand still for too long. I didn't want to sleep, surrender myself to a dream. I didn't want to sit down on my couch, or my bed. I didn't want to be alone tonight.

I went over to my sink and threw the bottle down into it, watching as the glass shattered and the last of the liquid leaked out into the drain. I gripped the sides of the sink and shut my eyes tight, not wanting to see the image anymore.

Then I broke more things. I went back to my fridge and threw food into the sink, watching as it was destroyed over and over. I went into my living area and kicked the couch, again and again until it hurt my feet, but I didn't mind. I overturned the table, watching as all of my important binders and paperwork fell into a mess on the floor. It didn't matter anymore. I felt like I could overturn the whole building, and none of it would matter, because I let Claire go all of those years ago.

I allowed myself to lean against a wall, and I shut my eyes.

Claire had asked me to remember moments from when we were younger, and they had all come flooding back to me in spurts that I couldn't control.

We were so stupid back then, but I was so happy for what felt like the first time in my teenage life that I let it blind me to any real problems. I dropped out at 17, but not before telling Vernon to kiss my ass one last time. On that same day, I had torn down the posters in the hallways announcing the voting for prom king and queen, then stalked away from the building, vowing never to return. I didn't realise until afterwards that Claire's name had been on that poster.

She came to find me later that day. She told me she'd had a hunch that she'd find me under the bleachers, and she stayed with me as I sat burning bits of paper. It gave me a kick watching stuff go up in flames.

When I had finally calmed down, she had moved to sit next to me and held my hand, stroking mine with her thumb. I told her I refused to go back to school, and she told me it was okay. I knew she wouldn't remember that moment if I had asked her, but I remembered it like she was still right beside me now, playing with my hands and running hers through my hair to brush my long hair out of my eyes. It had reminded me of being younger, when my mom used to comfort me in the same way whenever my dad and I had fought. She never stood up for me against him, but I had come to expect her sneaking in at night just to hold me and calm me down. The comfort eventually stopped as I grew older and she started relying on her medication more. Claire brought it back for me.

I hoped that she forgot the bad times we had, all of the fights and the screaming. We weren't afraid to raise our voices, wherever we were. When I reminded her again that I wasn't going to her prom, she had screamed at me, telling me that nobody cared if I showed up, but she wanted me to go. I think despite my insistence, she still expected me to be at her doorstep on the night of her dance, wearing a suit and carrying a corsage for her. Perhaps if I went back, I would've done it, but I just didn't think then, and she didn't talk to me for a week.

I hoped that she would remember our days spent together as fondly as I sometimes did. I always liked to mess with the scenery wherever I went, and as the months went on she liked to do it as well. We would find abandoned fields after walking for what felt for hours, and we would jump around and run after each other. We didn't realise it then, but we were bored out of our minds. We felt like there was nothing for us kids to do in the early '80s but steal beers from our parents and get drunk in warehouses.

We were so unlikely. John Bender and the would-be Prom Queen. She didn't win the competition, beat out instead by her friend Heather. Claire told me that she didn't mind, that it didn't mean anything to her. But just like when I didn't even turn up at the dance, she ignored the fact it wasn't her who had won, as if the competition hadn't even existed. As if the prom hadn't existed, because it didn't go the way she had wanted. That was just the way Claire would be sometimes. No matter how much I hated it, she was and always would be a princess.

In truth, sometimes I couldn't handle that myself. Sometimes I would meet her for the day and instantly be in a bad mood, because she'd start complaining about something that I couldn't care less about. She would talk about missing out on getting some exclusive Armani shirt, or how they'd run out of orange juice at her house that morning, and although I liked the fact she trusted me enough to openly vent, I couldn't help but feel like I was less compared to her. I never went shopping for clothes, not because I didn't want to, and I was lucky if there was anything in the fridge for me to have for breakfast back then.

At least I had learned from it all, in someway.

When I finally settled for bed that same night, I reminded myself of what I had vowed when Claire and I finally went our separate ways when we were 18 and 19. Commitment to one person would just drag me down, prevent me from reaching my true life goals. I had dreams that I had to accomplish. Those dreams involved always having a full fridge and wardrobe, spending money on myself and being selfish, because I had never had that privilege. I would live alone and die alone, because people were too much baggage.

But despite it all, what I told myself in my head over and over, I still sometimes rolled over in the night and longed for something to hold onto as I slept. Sometimes I felt so empty with all of the materialistic things I owned, without someone to share them with.

I realised then that I finally understood what Claire had been feeling when we were teenagers. The feeling of having so much that it felt like nothing, because you had no one to share it with. I realised then that I had been in the wrong the whole time.

* * *

I knew I had to pack for San Diego the next morning, but when I woke up I couldn't will myself to do it. I stared at my open suitcase for some time, figuring out how I would pack my life away into a small case. When I couldn't decide, I left my apartment.

Walking around always took my mind off of things, so I skipped the cab and decided to walk. I had the privilege of not having to go into work anymore, having left the job now in Shermer and solidifying the reality of my new job out of state.

My pace quickened until I was almost running.

I went to the mall, and I didn't know why. But somehow my walking led me to the street that it was located on and I went in. I wandered through all of its floors and eyed its stores, decided that I wouldn't enter any of them. It wasn't that I thought I was too good for them, it was just they didn't interest me. As I carried on, I almost walked past a music store, but stopped myself before I could. It looked ancient compared to its neighbours, with their neon and bright signs, and its peeling paintwork. I remembered instantly that it had been my go-to place to listen to music as a teen. It was where I had taken Claire one day and we had trawled through its records for hours, never agreeing on which we should buy to play on her record player because we had such different tastes.

With nothing else to do, I went inside.

Just like the Romany, the store hadn't changed since my youth. It's walls were still dark and it still had rows and rows of records. A new addition was its wall of cassette tapes, which appealed to me more. I wandered over to them, nodding at the moody-looking woman working at the cash machine as I passed, and stared at them all. Nobody else was in the store right now, and I imagined that was a common thing, but it made me feel like I had to be quick in browsing, especially if I didn't plan to buy anything. All I had on me was a 10 dollar note and I didn't want to waste it on shitty music.

One tape caught my eye out of them all. In bright lettering, it read 'A Flock Of Seagulls.'

I was reminded of talking to Claire on the roof.

I grabbed at the tape and immediately flipped it over to see its track listing. I couldn't remember the name of the song she had said, only the fact she liked a band named after birds, but when I saw it in writing I remembered instantly. 'Space Age Love Song.' Something that reminded her of me.

I purchased it immediately.

I began walking again with the tape now in my pocket, deciding to head back to my apartment and start my packing. If I felt up to it, I would listen to the tape. In fact, that was a lie. I knew I would listen to it as soon as I got in.

When walking on the streets, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because I ended up in a neighbourhood I knew all too well. As I continued walking, the houses began to look familiar. I remembered the Paulson's living in the house just across the street from me, and a kid with an annoying bell on his bike living in the house to my right.

I slowed down my walking as I glanced over and came face to face with the house I had once called my home growing up.

It was still gated, a silver chain link fence going round the property. It always had looked like trash, and I had been embarrassed to show it to anyone from an early age. The garden was overgrown, with weeds and wild flowers. The windows were blacked out by curtains so I couldn't see inside, but I knew they were home. The garage door was half way open, showing me that a car was inside it. I remembered tripping over and spilling paint in there when I was a teenager. My arm suddenly felt a sharp pain at the memory.

I hurried on. I couldn't face it, couldn't bring myself to go and try to knock on the door, despite what my instincts were obviously telling me by bringing me here. I wouldn't listen to them, refusing to look back. When I left Shermer, I knew I would never see that house again, or my parents inside it. I told myself that I no longer cared.

That didn't stop me from walking all the way to Shermer high school. I knew I was doing it this time. When the path gave me an option to turn right or left, I took the turning that I knew would take me to the school.

When I got there, I looked up at the building for some time. It was school hours and I could see students walking around in and out of the building, going about their days. One of those kids used to be me.

It almost made me sick how none of it had changed. The mess I had made when I left, the torn down paper and dents in the lockers I kicked would have been fixed by now. It all would have been forgotten. The last class to remember my outburst would have graduated and now the only one who remembered it was me. Vernon had been right; I really was nothing.

This is what I had become, 5 years on.

I walked around to the the field attached to the school, holding my breath when I found it empty and the bleachers standing alone, as if a harsh landscape for me to take in. I remembered trying my first cigarette underneath their seats, taking girls around there and kissing them when nobody was looking. I remembered holding hands with Claire when she didn't want anyone to know, and it pissed me off but I went along with it because I wanted to be with her so badly that I would never admit it.

As I approached the bleachers I realised they were in worse shape that they were when I was at Shermer. Vernon never liked to shed a buck on something like that. It had always surprised me, because he seemed so invested in athletics. He favoured students that were well-rounded; people who I had called 'sports'. I figured that was Andy, until Vernon ripped on him during our detention, and every week ever since I left. He hated them all because of me.

I kicked the benches forcefully, hearing them creak beneath the feet.

Or maybe Andy wasn't as well-rounded as I had once thought. In fact, he was kind of an idiot.

I took my anger out on the benches as I began to climb them. I kicked for all the times I had found myself missing Claire, stamped for the times people had abandoned me, jumped when I remembered Andy befriending Alec. Years of bottled up images came back. I ignored the noise it made and the pain it shot into my feet, because my dad had never stopped when I told him it hurt. I had forgotten that I wasn't wearing my heavy boots anymore. I had thrown those out long ago.

I went on kicking, not realising I had disturbed anyone until I heard someone shout to me from somewhere beneath where I was standing.

"Knock it off, man!" the voice said. I frowned, but stopped myself before jumping again, and moved to look below the bleachers. A boy was looking at me, no older than 16. With him was a group of others, all looking as ragged and dirty as the next. They were outcasts, burners, like I had once been. I shook my head, and walked on.

The kid persisted, though, following me as I walked.

"I said stop!" he said again.

"Make me," I said back, walking on again.

A few moments later, he had come out from behind the benches and stood on the field before me, eyeing me closely. I did the same back to him.

His hair was long, and his clothes were oversized for his body. On his feet, he wore boots, similar to the ones I had once owned. He reminded me straight away, much to my horror, of me.

"Who are you?" he said.

I sneered at him.

"None of your business.

"Well, you'll get us all in trouble if you keep on doing that. Chill out."

"Oh, I won't get in trouble, though I'm sure you will. Let's just wait for Vernon to join us on the field!" My voice grew louder as I went on until I was yelling back at the school, as if daring my old principle to come out and face me.

"Who are you?" the boy said again, making me look back at him.

"I used to go here," I said.

"That doesn't give you the right to act like you own this place. You might have been some… king of the school in your time, old man, but that's over now."

Old man. That took me aback.

"No, I wasn't like that." I grew defensive.

"You sure don't look like you were anything else."

He was referring to my appearance. My shorter hair, styled to the side in a business-like fashion, in the way that I had to do it for work. The only clothes I owned anymore were suits and items that made me look like I belonged to the local country club. He was right. I didn't look like I could be anything else than everything I used to detest. I knew it myself, too.

"I used to be like you," I said.

The kid lit up his cigarette, and rolled his eyes.

"I don't give a shit, just go away," he said.

"What, you think you're so cool because you smoke and do drugs at school? Had sex with a couple of girls so now you're too high and mighty to care about school? I used to be like you, idiot! I used to be just like all of you, beneath the bleachers, acting like I didn't give a shit about anything. But you know what happened to me? And what will happen to you? You'll grow the fuck up, and you'll realise that the world never cares about people like us. They don't give two shits about nobodies like me, or you. So I suggest you start paying attention and actually make something for yourself. What are you gonna do when you leave this place?"

He didn't answer me.

"Well, I'll tell you what I wanted to do," I began again. "I wanted to carry on like I had been. I wanted to drink and smoke all I wanted, I had a girlfriend and I never wanted to face the fact that one day…" I stopped myself.

One day it would all end. That's what I wanted to say. But the boy rolled his eyes, puffed out smoke, then began to walk away.

"Yeah, walk away," I yelled at him, "that's what I would've done to. You'll know what I was talking about one day when you wake up and you're 22 and you realise that no matter how unkind life was to you, nobody cares but you. Nobody cares and you have to grow up and move on. Who gives a fuck anymore."

I looked down at the bench I had been standing on, and I jumped hard on it. I carried on the row, letting out all the anger I felt on the wood, wanting it to break beneath me and let me fall. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted it to give me an excuse to feel anything other than the self-pity I felt right now.

That boy didn't care what I had to say. Young me wouldn't have either. But when you grow up, you realise that things change and life doesn't stop for anybody. Even the once untouchable John Bender.

* * *

When I inevitably went back to my apartment, I threw my coat down and breathed out until all my air was gone and I had to take a sharp breath to get it back again. As my coat hit the floor, I heard the sound of my cassette hitting the carpet with a thud. I reached down and dug it out of my pocket, inspecting the front and back of it again.

I decided to start unpacking my suitcase then. But first, I took the cassette out and let it play as I began folding my shirts and putting them neatly into my suitcase.

Once Space Age Love Song had come on and ended, and I had finally listened to it, I removed the cassette from the player and began unpicking it to unravel the tape inside. Then I threw it on the floor and stamped on it until I heard it crack.

I didn't want to listen to it ever again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Claire.**

The night I got in after seeing John, I found Alec sitting on a chair in the living room waiting for me. He was tense and I could tell that just by looking at him. Usually when he sat, he lounged. He was never too shy to sit back properly on the couch. But now he was sat forward, back straight, as if he was in audience with the pope.

He turned to look at me when I walked through the door.

"Hey," I said softly. I began removing my jacket as the warmth of the room and my house hit me.

"Where have you been?" he asked me. I walked further into the room, finally allowing myself to come into the light so Alec and I could see each other properly. His hair was messy, as if he had been running his hands through it every few minutes, and he was in his pyjamas.

"I've been out with the girls. I told you, remember?"

He stood up from the couch.

"That's funny you should say that, because I called the bar you told me you were going to with them, and I got Benny on the phone. She told me you'd left over an hour ago, because I was outside to pick you up."

My eyes widened instinctively. I had been caught red handed, my white lie unravelling before my very eyes. Alec was breathing heavily, as if to calm himself down.

"Where have you really been, Claire?" he asked. His voice was deadly quiet, but then Alec never raised his voice to me. He always preferred to talk things out calmly, even if I was screaming at him. I hated it. With an attitude like that, we never had proper fights, just discussions. I hated those even more.

"At a different bar," I said, shrugging my shoulders. I tried to make it seem like I had nothing to hide, but I wasn't very good at it.

"Why? Why did you lie to them and tell them that you left? I thought they were your friends."

"I didn't want to see them anymore."

"But why, Claire?"

"Because I didn't want to talk about the wedding anymore!"

Now it was his turn for his eyes to widen. I stared into them for as long as I felt I could, then broke away, looking down at the ground. I knew he didn't understand. He wouldn't. He wouldn't get why I didn't like the sort of people my old friends were, or why I was sick of having the same conversation all over again.

"I wanted to take my mind off of how stressed out I am about everything, so I went to a different place," I said.

"Alone?"

"No."

"Then who were you with? Allison? Brian?"

I pressed my lips together. No matter what I said to him, he would be upset. If I told him I was with Allison, he wouldn't understand why I would be so petty to not invite her to see my old friends with me. If I told him I was with Brian, he would be jealous. If I told him I had gone alone, he would be concerned. I couldn't imagine what his reaction would be like if I told him about John. And to top it all off, he had waited up for me, probably worried sick about where I had got to. I had robbed him of a night's sleep, but I could tell he wouldn't go to bed anytime soon if I didn't answer his question.

"I was with John," I said.

I didn't look back up at him, but I heard Alec inhale loudly, then breathe out through his mouth.

"That's what this is all about, isn't it? It's always about John."

"What?" Finally, I looked back up, frowning at such an accusation. It was never about John. I hadn't thought about him for years since this summer.

I knew that was a lie, though, because John slipped in and out of my mind all the time, as if teasing me with his reminder. No matter how hard I had tried, filling my head instead with memories with Alec and away from Shermer, he always came back. It was like the old cliché of never forgetting your first love. John never let me forget.

"Is he why you're worried about the wedding, Claire?"

"Of course not!" I suddenly yelled, so sick of being questioned on where I stood in my life. John had asked me if I still loved him on the roof, and now Alec was asking if John being around affected the way I felt. It made me feel sick, because I knew I shouldn't even have to think on the question for even a second, but I did.

"I thought you got over this when we started dating. I thought I helped you get over how hurt you were with everything. I realise it was a bad idea for you to jump straight into a relationship with someone else, but goddamn it Claire I loved you and I didn't want to wait."

"Loved?" I questioned.

"Love, loved. The point is, I thought you were over him, I really did. You know, I've been with other girls before you, I've dated before. None of them effected me like the way John Bender effected you. It isn't normal."

"I don't want to be normal," I said.

"But normal is good! Don't you see? When we get married, we'll settle down and everything is set for us. We'll have easy lives, and we'll be so happy. There's nothing at all to be stressed out about."

"You don't understand me, Alec. You never did."

"I don't understand? I…" Alec danced around for a moment, trying to calm himself down. He did that a lot. He rested the palms of his hand against his forehead. "I'm always trying to understand you, but right now I'm stuck to try and figure out why you went to see John tonight instead of coming home to me."

It was a very good question, but one I didn't have the answer for.

"Why don't you just yell at me, Alec?" I asked, "I deserve it. Go on, shout at me, you're angry and I want you to shout at me. We'll never work things out if we don't fight properly!"

"Oh, so that's what it is. You're trying to give me a reason to shout at you? By making me jealous? Seriously, sometimes I question your sanity."

"This is pathetic," I said, shaking my head.

"What is? Me? I didn't realise respecting someone made me a pathetic person."

"But you can never truly tell me how you really feel! You always bottle it up, shake it off, but I want to know! Tell me! Tell me how it makes you feel that I spent my night with John Bender while you were home alone, tell me how angry you are. Go on!" I yelled at him, stepping forward and watching as he backed away, as if scared of me. Then he frowned, and his face changed.

"Fine, you know what, Claire? I'm livid," he began, his voice rising as he went. "You know how hard it is to be with someone like you sometimes? You want too much out of everyone. You want things your way and you want it now. You're so spoiled, Claire! You didn't want to deal with your friends, and instead of dealing with it like a normal person, you booked it out of there and went to see your ex-boyfriend. That's what makes me the most angry, if you really insist on knowing. In fact, I'm going crazy thinking about it! Right now, I… I don't even want to look at you." As quickly as his voice had grown louder, it dropped again, and he was standing in the living room looking no longer defiant. Instead, he looked down, and he looked sad.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to reach out to him.

"No, Claire, no you're not. You're never sorry, because you never understand how other people feel. You're stuck in some fantasy world, and you know what? You're not only playing fantasy with me, but with John, too. I don't exactly like the guy, but it's sick what you're doing. You're engaged, and you're still seeing him. Something isn't right about that."

"You're right." I finally accepted it. When John had told me something similar, I had only taken it in but never recognised it. Now it had been repeated, and laid out to me in plain sight. I was messing around with too many people. I couldn't ever give John what he wanted anymore, because he had made it clear that all he wanted was for me to love him. But then I couldn't give Alec what he wanted, because I had never been able to change the way I was. All along I had thought they had both loved me for it, but now I saw that both of them wanted me to change myself. Either way I went, I would have to be different. But John was going to San Diego now, and Alec was my fiancé. The path for me to take was clear in my mind, but for some reason I couldn't fight the feeling that it was the wrong one.

"Do you… do you still love him?" Alec suddenly asked me. I snapped my head up to see him, opening my mouth to reply. Nothing came out. I should've been able to answer the question quickly, lie if I had to. But I couldn't even do that, especially when tired and still running on the drinks from earlier. I knew then that what I had said to John on the roof was a lie.

The worst of it all was that I also knew then that Alec had known long before I had, otherwise he would never have asked.

Alec screwed his face up, and I saw his eyes watering, but he looked away before I could see any tears.

"I think we should go to bed now," he said.

"I think so, too."

"You go get ready, I'll follow you up in a bit."

I nodded at him, even though he wasn't looking to see it, even though I knew he wouldn't really follow me upstairs. Now we were both liars.

"Good night," I said to him, then left before he could reply.

I should have stayed to work things out with him, or at least find out what was to happen next. But in that moment, all I wanted to do was go to sleep and not wake up, saving myself from the horrible feeling I had in my stomach. I wanted someone to hold me, to comfort me, as I always did whenever I felt like that. When I was finally lying down in bed that night, I wrapped the sheets around me and pretended that someone was there with an arm around me. But the worst of all, and I didn't realise it until I was almost asleep, was that I wasn't pretending that person with me was Alec. I was pretending it was John.

* * *

I woke up the next morning after a night of tossing and turning and uncomfortable positions on the bed. I felt nauseous already, and my head ached. When I opened my eyes, I was staring up at my mother, as she sat just next to me on the bed. She smiled when she saw that I had woken properly, and removed her hand from my shoulder where she had just shook me. Then she handed me a glass of water that she had been holding in her lap. I sat up and took it, drinking it down quickly. When I had finished, I put it down on my bedside table, and carried on looking at her.

I had no clue why she was waking me; it was something she'd not done for a long time. Nowadays I was used to my alarm, or Alec, or even the housemaid, but never seeing my mother's face first thing in the morning. As I watched her, she almost looked pained, as if she was struggling with what she was doing. I realised it must have been awkward for her, living in a house with another couple, her daughter and boyfriend no less, and hearing them argue in the nighttime. Especially the subject of last night's argument. If I were her, with so many plans and expectations, I would be furious. We must have woken her up when we were shouting, and surely she was here to tell me off now. But she didn't look angry, just saddened.

"Good morning, darling," she said softly.

"Morning."

"Darling… Why did Alec sleep on the couch last night?"

I bit down on my lip, realising then that my bed was empty and Alec really hadn't followed me up last night. I hadn't believed him when he said he would come to bed, but there was still a part of me that thought I'd at least see him when I woke up. Instead, he slept alone downstairs on the couch with no blankets and no fiancée. Now I looked like the heartless one.

Perhaps I was. I'd let him do it. Where else did I really think he was supposed to sleep? Of course, he would pick the couch over having to come and face me while I was in a bad mood. He always did anything to avoid the confrontation.

"I heard you two last night, the fight. Are you upset?" my mother said. I sighed, and ran my hand through my hair to brush my fringe away from my face.

"Not really. Not right now, at least," I said.

My mother stared back at me with a strange look in her eye.

"Claire, I love you dearly. I don't think I tell you that enough. I always have, from the moment you were born and you started growing little tuffs of ginger hair. I knew you were going to take after me the moment I walked in on you in my room with a face full of my make up on, at only age 5. I was so angry at the time, but I wish I had taken a picture."

I smiled at the story, but didn't remember her loving me at that time. In fact, she passed me off to my father when he got home from work, and was angry for the next few days. It was understandable from an older viewpoint; I had ruined all of her makeup. But when you're 5 and your own mother won't talk to you, it always sucked, no matter what. Not too soon after that, we hired a maid who was good with children, and I had a nanny for the rest of my life who would keep an eye on me. It ensured I never stole my mother's makeup again, but it had made us grown apart. That was why I had always been such a daddy's girl.

I felt myself tearing up.

My mother noticed straight away, and pulled me into her arms, shushing me and running her hands over my back and through my hair. It helped a little bit.

"I'm sorry things are hard right now, darling. I know it's tough for you, it's a lot to handle."

"You don't know what any of this is like, because it was all easier for you," I said through my crying, pulling away to look at my mom properly, surprising myself that I had actually said something like that out loud. Surely it gave me away. It was easier for her because she had loved my dad completely. My mother looked taken aback, but her face didn't change too much, as if she had planned for a similar protest from me. Maybe she did know me better than I thought.

"Claire, it was so hard for me when I was in your position. So hard. You think I don't see what's going on? I'm smarter than you'd like to think. I know you're nervous about this, unhappy even. I was too. But let me tell you, you may think whatever you want to think about what we're doing, think that we're unreasonable and that we all want to hurt you, but you're wrong. Your father and I only want what is best for you, and so does Alec."

"I don't want to hear this, mom." I broke out of her arms and got up from the bed.

"Listen to me! Sometimes when I look at you all I see staring back at me is myself," she said, her voice waving. When I looked back at her, she was crying. "I see me at 22, when I was engaged to your father. Only I was worse. I used to drink every night and I used to cry, cry because I didn't want to get married so young and throw my life away. I had dreams, too. I had other boys that I felt I still loved. But that was what my father wanted for me. So I did it. And you know what, Claire? It was the best thing I ever did. Look at my life now, look at our home and all of us, we're rich. Don't you want this for yourself?"

I glared at her from the corner of my room, where I had moved over to stand.

"I'd rather be poor and happy, than rich and miserable," I said.

"Claire, I'm happy. You're happy. And you will be happy with Alec. You just have to give it a chance."

"I know I'll be happy with Alec but I don't want the life you've picked for me!"

"We're just trying to do what's best for you, darling." She stood up from the bed, and stood with her hands on her hips. "I heard what was said last night, and I know that was your John Bender at the party last week. I know what this all is, and you can forget it right away. You think that just because he was your first boyfriend, and he's got you convinced he cares about you, he's going to be the only person you can love? He was more manipulative than I thought. Claire, he's trash! You do not love that boy, and if you go back to him you're throwing your whole life away!"

"I'm not going back to him, why does nobody listen to me?!" I shouted at her. But I couldn't get what she had referred to John as out of my head. Your John Bender. Was he still mine?

"We listen to you, but you don't listen to us," her voice was calm again. She moved towards me and wrapped her arms around my body, pulling me into a hug. "You have to just believe me. I know how it feels, I know what it's like to be you."

We stood in silence for a minute before she spoke again.

"His name was Tommy," she said, "We were going to change the world together. He was so poor but when we were together, that didn't matter. My father hated him, my mother didn't care to know him, because she knew I wouldn't marry him. She was right. He was conscripted the next year, and he told me he would fight for me in the war. But I never saw Tommy again. Not too long after, I met your father."

She pulled away from the hug, and held me at arms length, her hands on my shoulders so she could look directly at me.

"Tommy was my John, your father is my Alec. If I had been with Tommy, I would be penniless and miserable. Even if he hadn't died, it wouldn't have worked out. But your father, Howard, things are different. Things are better like this. They will be for you too, darling. You have to believe that."

She pulled me into another hug. I didn't know how to reply. All my life I had thought that my mother would have never gone for anyone like John, only men as refined as my father. That was the original appeal of John to me. I knew my mom had dated before, but never someone on Tommy's level. And maybe their relationship was a metaphor for how mine and John's was. It crashed and burned, and died, and ended with us both saddened. But then I found Alec, and that was what the rest of my life was to be like, just like my mother's. She was never meant to be with Tommy, because she never got the chance. Maybe I was never meant to be with John, because we let the chance go.

But no matter how many years were in between when my Tommy love died, I still felt it all the time. And as my mother and I stood hugging in my room, I heard her begin to cry again, and I knew she still felt that love all the time, too.

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**_Author's note: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you all have a nice time. Next chapter up later in the week. xx_**


	14. Chapter 14

**Allison.**

I had come to find relief every time I got to my art class. Things had been rocky recently with Andy and me. Whenever I got home, he was always sat around waiting for me, but I always told him I wanted to go to bed. It was true that I was tired, but I also didn't ever feel up to talking about my feelings with him. That had never been something I was good at, and I doubted I would be any better if I started now. Every night he would sigh and mutter to himself, but he let me go all the same. He never came to bed straight away. He always sat up watching movies, and I no longer painted at my easel in our room anymore. I just sat wide awake in the middle of the bed.

I preferred painting now while being in class surrounded by a room of silent people as they, too, painted. We had been working on still life based on a set up in the middle of the room, so it was always interesting for me to walk around the room, stretching my legs and looking at what everyone else was doing with their blank canvas'. We all had completely different styles, some better than others, but that was why we all took the class. We wanted to learn and refine our skills.

My work was always full of many brush strokes and no straight lines. Even if I was drawing a box, I would change it around and morph it into something more circular. I preferred that more to rigid settings.

Ricardo had a beautiful style himself. He would paint, sat still, for hours on end, and barely get any work done in one sitting. But what he had worked on was always picturesque. He captured the colours well, the shapes perfectly. I envied him for that. Sitting next to him, my work always seemed like a rushed mess of bright colours, while his was spot on and realistic.

That's what he called himself: a realist. Once he had likened me to a modern.

One evening the class was dismissed, but I chose to stay behind so I could finish off the colour of the fruit in the basket. I was in some sort of trance, glancing between my canvas and the scene. I heard the people around me packing away and leaving, but I didn't stop.

I was half-aware as Ricardo approached me from behind, watching me as I worked. When Andy had done that to me before, I had been uncomfortable and had stopped. From then on, I never let him see my working progress. But Ricardo was an artist like me, he had a critical eye and he knew what he was talking about when he spoke to me about the work. While he watched, he was analysing. He was always full of judgement, but I kind of liked that about him. He never trod on eggshells around me, unlike Andy.

"It's a deeper red than that," he commented after a while of watching me. I didn't look up from my painting, carrying on instead.

"I know. I prefer it brighter."

"I've noticed that about your work." I could hear him laughing quietly, and I smiled to myself. Eventually, I ran my hand over my sweaty forehead and decided to finish for the night. Finally, I turned to look at him. He had his arms folded, and I was aware then that he wasn't looking at my work, but me instead.

"You've been staying behind a lot recently," he said.

"I could say the same for you."

"Well, I work slow. I'll fall behind if I don't do extra."

"Me too."

He raised his eyebrows at me.

"Your painting looks almost finished to me."

"Not to me," I said, then stood from my chair and stretched my body to prevent it from aching after sitting too long. I began to pack away my materials, and Ricardo helped me as I carried over my paintbrushes to the sink to wash them. I stabbed them against the tile, watching as the paint ran down into the drain with the water from the tap, and smiled. Ricardo looked up at me and smiled as well.

When we had cleaned everything up, we walked back to my work and both looked at it. I could see where it needed touching up, where things weren't just quite right. I sat back down in my chair and immediately regretted taking the paints away, because I wanted to finish it tonight. Instead I took my little finger and touched a few areas where the oil paint was still wet, so I could remind myself for tomorrow where I had to paint next.

"Tell me why you really stay behind," Ricardo suddenly said to me. I turned around to the sound and I saw that he had walked closer to me, almost touching me as he stood behind me at the easel. My mouth opened to say something, then closed again.

"I have nothing left to go home to," I said quietly, glancing at my hands and then up at him.

Ricardo didn't say anything back to me, just looked at me. His lips were pursed and his hands were at his sides, having fallen from being crossed moments ago. In a matter of seconds, he was moving in closer to me, and the same hands were wrapped around my waist to hold me as he kissed my lips gently. It was cautious at first, as if testing the waters, but then I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck. We kissed for only a matter of minutes, because as my hands moved up to wrap in his hair like I always liked to do, I found that it was long and not short like Andy's. I shoved him away from me abruptly.

"I'm sorry," I said, my eyes wide with disbelief.

"What was that for?"

I shook my head, beginning to stand and gather my things. I threw my coat on quickly and put my bag over my shoulder haphazardly, knowing I had to leave. I couldn't stay here. I'd done a very bad thing.

"I have to go home now," I said, refusing to look at him again.

"I thought you said there was nothing left there?"

"I lied. I do that a lot."

I left my painting still on its easel, no longer caring about my unfinished project, no longer caring about the class. I didn't look at Ricardo again as I left the room and the building.

My fast pace remained as I made my way home. I was aware of my heart beating loudly in my ears and my coat overheating my body, but I wanted to get home before I could care about any of those things. I screwed my face up, but no tears came. All I was left with was self-pity and confusion.

I didn't know why I had let him kiss me. I didn't know why I had responded in the way that I had. But I had done it, it had happened. Maybe my brain was confused, and had thought it was Andy. Maybe with the lack of affection lately from him, I was unknowingly seeking it. That just made me selfish.

Andy had been right about Ricardo. He had been right all along. Perhaps a part of me had liked him, wanted to see what being with someone else was like, and Ricardo had been willing to help me with that. The whole time, Andy had shouted and yelled to my deaf ears. But he was right. He always was.

I suddenly dreaded the idea of returning home to him. Before, when I was still at the studio and after I had pushed Ricardo away, all I wanted to do was go home and have him hug me and remind me that everything was okay, to prevent the numbness from washing over me again. But I would only be able to look at him now with guilty eyes. I wouldn't be able to smile at him, face him even. He would be able to tell, read everything from me. He had a habit of getting down to the route of what I was thinking and feeling. That was a problem.

I delayed walking up the stairs to our apartment, and entered through the door when I couldn't put it off any longer. Like clockwork, I placed my keys on the side, and removed my coat and scarf. My body relished in the cool breeze of our apartment with all of its windows opened. I glanced around the room to find Andy, but didn't see him. It would figure that tonight would be the first night in a week that he had went out after work. I almost liked it. It gave me time to compose myself, to clean my body, feel better again. When alone, I could be as selfish as I wanted to be. And right now, selfish me wanted to go to bed.

Walking into the bedroom led me to find out where Andy was. He was sat at my easel, an unreadable look on his face as he stared at my latest canvas. He must have got it out of the stack, either that or I had forgotten to put it away whenever I had last painted. It was a picture of a man painting at a canvas. Upon seeing it, I felt sick to my stomach, because I immediately recognised the features as belonging to Ricardo, something I hadn't noticed when I had been working on it.

He turned to me as I walked in the room and the floor boards creaked beneath me. We both stared at each other for a while. No 'hello's or friendly greeting. Just a hard look as we both waited for the inevitable fight.

"I didn't go to the Romany tonight," he finally broke the silence.

"That's a surprise," I muttered, but our surroundings were so quiet that he heard me. He shook his head.

"No. This isn't about me. I want to talk to you about these paintings."

"Paintings?" Only one painting was out. The rest were always covered up by a bed sheet, hidden away. I glanced down at where the pile usually was, and found the bed sheet had been removed and the paintings were unordered. "You went through my things?"

"I live here too, Allison. You have no right to keep secrets from me."

"Those paintings are private! They're the one private thing I have left here."

"Well, I can see why they're private now. Who is this?" he gestured to the painting. I didn't say anything. "There are more of him. So many paintings of him. Who is he? Is this the same guy from the other night?"

I pursed my lips together, as I finally felt my eyes watering. I picked the worst times to cry. Andy took it as a conformation, and he nodded at me. He looked down at his clasped hands, as we had now reached a dead end.

"Allison?" he said softly. I was still looking at him when his eyes came back to me again. He paused for a moment, as if scared to say what he wanted to. "Do you still love me?"

The phone began to ring before I could reply to him. I could've thrown my arms around him and sworn by all that I had in me that I did, or I could've remained angry at him for prying into my things. Instead, I answered the phone.

When I picked up and Claire began to talk to me, Andy followed me to stand with me. He never liked to leave questions unanswered. Neither did Claire on the phone, as she pushed me to respond to at least one of her questions properly. I chose the one about John over the one about me.

"Well, I guess you could try at the Romany. God knows everyone and their mother is always there," I said, and behind me I heard Andy swear to himself, loudly enough so that Claire had probably heard it.

When I hung up the phone, I stayed staring at the wall and didn't turn back to him, knowing what I would see. Anger, hurt, and so many other things that I couldn't deal with seeing right now.

"That was a low blow," he said. I shook my head.

"It's true. You're always there, what else am I supposed to do?"

"Not cheat! That's what you're not supposed to do!"

"I didn't cheat on you!" I yelled as I spun around, finally defending myself properly. He breathed out harshly.

"I wish I believed you."

Any tears that had cleared while I was on the phone to Claire suddenly came rushing back again as I let out a low sob in reply to him. I held my arm up to my face so he couldn't see me crying, but we both knew it was happening. I felt pathetic.

"You know, Allison, the first night you came home late from class I had made us dinner. I had slaved over the oven to make something nice for you, and bought us wine and laid out candles. You responded by coming home drunk and singing praises about another guy. I bought you new canvases on the same day. I didn't want to disturb your other work, so I laid them out without touching anything. You didn't notice."

I lowered my hand from my face; he carried on.

"I stopped going to the Romany because you said you had to wait for me. I did that for you! But you started coming home from class later than usual. You stopped talking to me, touching me, kissing me. You closed off to me. I felt like I was a teenager again and you were still that defensive girl. And I have got to say, I never liked that side of you.

"But I still tried. Look, I'm sorry I looked at your canvases. I'm sorry I snooped around. But how the fuck do you expect me to feel when I do look at them, after weeks of this torment, and find that you've been painting someone else multiple times? They're not just innocent pictures when there are loads of them. What did I do to deserve that? Just answer me that, at least. What did I do to deserve any of this?"

I felt like I was being crushed by something hard against my chest. I pressed my lips together to stop myself from sobbing again, but that wasn't good enough for Andy. He waited for my reply for another minute, then swore again loudly and turned and hit the wall with his hand. I flinched, and finally opened my mouth.

"The only person I ever wanted to paint was you, but you never let me."

He turned back to look at me, surely seeing me for the pathetic person that I was and always had been. All this time I had thought that he had been the controlling and over-the-top boyfriend, but deep down he had just loved me like he had always said he would. I had taken that for granted, and now I was left with this. I never stopped being a mess.

Maybe it was because he really did love me, but Andy didn't walk away then. He looked at me, feeling at his sore hand as he did, then he moved to me quickly in one swift motion and we were kissing for the first time in what felt like months. It was so different to kissing Ricardo. I knew Andy, knew the way his body felt under my arms and my hands. I knew that he liked me to stroke his hair, and run my cold hands up the back of his shirt. I was kissing someone familiar again. I realised then that familiarity was what kept all of my messy traits at bay. Andy kept it at bay.

I pulled away from him first, but didn't move my body away from him. Instead I took the hand he had hit the wall with and began kissing up and down it, rubbing to soothe it better.

I knew it was all too good to be true. Nobody kissed and made up that easily, not even in movies.

"Al, why do you smell like aftershave?"

My mouth flew open and I stopped breathing.

"Allison?" he asked again.

I slowly moved my eyes up to look at him, and his face was full of confusion and disbelief. He wanted to act naive to it, but he was smarter than that.

"Ricardo," was all I could say, a quiet murmur from my lips.

"Did you…?"

I didn't reply, just carried on looking at him.

Before I could stop him, he had moved his hand out of my grip and his body left mine standing alone, still stood by the phone. I didn't move. I heard him as he grabbed his keys, not bothering with a coat, and then the familiar slam of the front door.

He left me alone that night, with nothing but my art and pictures of Ricardo that I had so happily painted before. Now, when I saw them, all they reminded me was how my supposed great love story had crashed and burned, to no fault but my own.


	15. Chapter 15

**Hey readers, hope you all had happy holidays! Apologies for the late chapter, I've just been busy - so, no, I haven't given up on this story just yet! This chapter is a little bit more darker than perhaps any of the others, but I had always planned this sort of story out for Brian. I never said this would be a happy BC story, unfortunately! I'll be updating again soon with a chapter from Andy, Claire and finally John, before one final closing chapter to mark the end of this story. I know, it's ending so soon but I'm sure you'll all love everything I have in store for these characters. Enjoy!**

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**Brian.**

The thoughts were back again. It had started unexpectedly one night. I had been sitting at my desk, during the early hours of the morning, working on my essay that I still had yet to complete. I kept writing and then throwing my paper away, writing some more and then deciding that was just as much garbage as the first thing. It accumulated with me having used up a whole pad of paper, none more left to use, and a thought in my mind about how much easy this ordeal would be, for everyone else including me, if I just ended it.

I wished it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

For as long as I could remember, things like that had been in my mind. When I was a kid I had wondered what falling out of my window would be like; not the pain aspect, but the thought of not being around anymore. I figured that was normal. In fact, I figured all of my thoughts had always been normal because I had never told anyone about them. I never mentioned to my mom that when I helped her in the kitchen I never took the right precautions, or my friends from high school that I didn't mind accidentally mixing the wrong chemicals. I had never really cared about myself.

I didn't tell anyone, that was, until I went to Saturday detention.

I knew then, when the gun had gone off and I was being reported for it, that it wasn't normal for a teenager to acquire a gun to shoot themselves with. Get revenge on friends, maybe, cause damage to the buildings, but not to turn it on yourself.

I always remembered the shock on Claire's face whenever I thought about high school. For many it was a happy memory, but for me it was a sad and misunderstood time. When I cried in front of my friends in detention because I had wanted to die over a bad grade, and they started laughing, I thought it would all be okay in the end. I thought it would symbolise some sense of happiness after years of being miserable with not many friends.

It didn't make it go away completely, though.

They all laughed, but they couldn't laugh and joke about it when I was alone. I couldn't always remind myself of the humour of the situation, and instead I found myself sat at my desk, surrounded by scrunched up paper, wishing that I still had that gun.

But because I no longer had that luxury, I planned it in other ways. I made sure I knew when it would happen, what day, what time, and in what way. The only problem was my friends. Every time it came to the time and I went to do it, they somehow prevented it.

It came first in the form of Claire, calling me one night.

"Brian?" she said down the phone line.

"Hey, Claire," I replied. I forced myself to smile, knowing that if I did I would sound happier. It seemed to work, because Claire didn't mention it.

"Brian, this is going to sound really weird and stupid of me. Maybe even crazy, but I just really need you to give me the address of John's apartment."

"John's apartment?" I questioned, unsure I had heard her right.

"Yes, John's apartment. I need to see him urgently and… I don't suppose you'd understand if I told you why."

"Need some normalcy?" I asked.

"How did you know?"

"Because he helps me in the same way."

John had been in my shop class when I got the F grade. We didn't know each other then. He had watched me attempt to build my project, fail miserably, and then receive the grade. His locker wasn't too far from mine in high school. He had probably seen what the flare gun had done when it went off, and although I doubted he knew it had been me, he probably had a hunch when I had been in the detention. We'd locked eyes in the hallways many times before we met properly.

And yet, he was the one who still treated me like he treated everyone else. He knew I had problems, knew I was upset. That detention nobody else would talk to me, look at me, but John teased me from the get go because I was a familiar face and he didn't give a damn about my problems. It had offended me at first, made me feel even more sorry for myself after the ordeal I'd gone through to be in detention in the first place, but it hindsight it had helped. If I remembered correctly, he was the one who laughed at me first when I told the story about the flare gun. It was exactly what I needed. Normalcy.

I gave Claire the address to John's apartment.

"Thank you so much, Brian," she said.

"Just don't go having John as your best friend over me, alright?" I said, only half joking. While I understood why she chose to talk to John, it still hurt that it wasn't me she chose first, like she usually did. Maybe the only reason she had used to choose me was because I was the only one in reaching distance who wasn't Alec when we lived in Chicago. The thought made me feel even worse about myself.

"Don't be silly," she said. "I gotta go now, I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Yeah," I said. But I wasn't sure about that.

When I hung up the phone, I considered the fact that I hadn't told her about my problems, but got sad she wouldn't tell me about hers. I felt then that we were growing away from each other.

I had grown away from all of them over the years. College had come and I'd been away, and everyone got busy with their own things. I got too invested in my work to notice. But now it was summer and I had more free time, it became obvious. Nobody called for me, nobody asked to do anything with me or see me.

Well, except for Andy. That was my next distraction from my plans.

He arrived at my door late at night.

Half-angry, half-confused, I left the bathroom to answer the knocking door. Andy stood before me, wiping his face furiously to hide his tears, but I could tell he had been crying. Sobbing, even. I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head. Nobody wanted to tell me about their problems.

"Come in," I said, knowing the usual routine. He would come in, sit on my bed and then spend the night. We would hang out as if we were still teenagers shooting the breeze, not that that was something I ever really did when I was younger. Sometimes I felt like he forgot he was truly 22 and adults weren't supposed to just 'hang' anymore with no reason or agenda.

Oh wait, he always had a reason. He only ever came to see me when he was upset.

Even so, I let him inside and we went upstairs and sat around for a bit as we had done before.

"I get the sense you're not going to tell me what happened?" I asked him after small talk for 10 minutes.

He shook his head.

"It's not that I don't want to. I want to talk about it. But I don't want to accept that it happened yet," he said.

"I don't really understand you."

"Yeah… Look, I came here to forget about it. So, how's it going with you?"

The question took me aback. What would I tell him? Lies, of course.

"Yeah, I've been fine. Just working on my essay for school, as always."

"I didn't realise you were such a perfectionist," he said, smirking at me.

"Yeah, well, I take pride in my work."

"Oh, that's not a bad thing. I wish I was more like that. I just do a half-ass job at work all the time."

I wanted to tell him that he wouldn't want to be anything like me, but I just smiled instead.

"So, this…er…essay," he began again, "the fact you want to get it so perfect doesn't have anything to do with your hot teacher, does it?"

"No! No, of course not!" I squeaked out, automatically growing flustered when I had remembered what I said last time Andy had been here. No way was I working so hard for my old male teacher. But Andy didn't accept that, taking my defence as embarrassment for being caught out. A smile grew on his face, sweeping across his features as if he were the Cheshire Cat.

"It is, isn't it! Aw, Brian, that's so sweet!"

"It's really not, you have the complete wrong idea!"

"Oh, come on, Bri, we're both men here. It's okay to admit it. Go on, admit it."

"Oh… Fine, you're right."

Andy always had to win.

"I knew it. I called it!"

Once his triumph ran through the air and I didn't respond, we sat for a moment in quiet, until he began again.

"So…um…are you going to do anything about it?"

I shook my head quickly, too quickly for Andy.

"No, no way-"

He cut me off.

"Brian! This is the first time I've heard of you having a crush and I'm not letting you act like it's nothing."

He paused, then suddenly got up and made his way to my desk.

"What are you doing?" I asked, but he didn't respond.

Andy began moving my pile of ironed clothes from my chair so he could sit down, then rearranged the way the table was laid out-as if it was his own desk. Then he moved my note pad in front of him, grabbed at a random pen and flipped to a clean page. He began to write in his scruffy handwriting, as I moved to watch over him.

"Dear, Ms…" he began, "what's her name?"

My eyes widened.

"You're not doing what I think you're doing!"

He spun in the chair to look up at me.

"Look, when you send off this marvellous essay of yours, it's a great time to edge in the fact that you love her. Nothing crude, I'm willing to help you. Now, what's her name?"

"I don't like this," I said, standing firm by my decision. If Andy kept on, my lie would come out, and I'd have to tell him the truth.

"Okay, forget the name for now." He turned back to the desk and put the pen to the paper again. "I hope…you've had a good summer. I did too, but…truthfully, I couldn't get my mind off of you the whole time. In fact, my summer was lonely without you….I miss your classes, and I miss you more…"

As Andy read out what he was writing as he went along, I finally admitted defeat and sat back on the bed, letting my head fall into my hands. I barely listened to anything he was saying.

"I know it sounds crazy…but I think we could make something work…the truth is, Ms, I've been hopelessly in love with you ever since you first lectured my…um…maths lesson…"

"Doctor! I'm studying to be a doctor!" My head suddenly shot up and I was alert. Andy didn't even have a clue what I did in Chicago.

"Doctor, yes, that's right! Since my first doctor lesson…wait, that's not the right word for it…um…Brian, a little help? Brian?"

I was aware then of his eyes finally upon me, but I didn't look at him. I stared instead at the blank wall in front of me, pressing my lips together to force the water springing to my eyes back in, praying it wouldn't dare fall in front of a guy like Andy.

"Are you okay?" he asked. I heard the sound of the pen dropping onto the pad and my old desk chair creaking as it swivelled around.

"I lied." My voice came out quiet.

"Huh?"

"I said I lied." Finally, my eyes met with Andy's, a confused look on his face. Any playful look it had been wearing moments before to write a stupid love letter was gone from it, replaced instead with an expression of weariness. He looked like he had aged , bags lining underneath his eyes and a slight droop to his mouth. I felt like anything I told him, about my problems that shouldn't even be problems at all, would just add another line to his face.

I couldn't stop myself once I had started, though.

"I lied about my professor. I'm not in love with her, and she isn't a she at all. He's a 50 plus year old man called David. I told you that because I've never told anyone what's really going on before, not even Claire, not even my friends in Chicago. I told you it to dodge questions and any uncomfortableness, but now it's gone on for too long and I don't want you to do this for me."

"What's going on?"

"I…um…" My mouth felt dry and I almost felt shaky, as if I was going to throw up, as if I was worried to speak my mind. "I've not been doing too good lately. That's the truth. I've been doing terrible, in fact. I think-I think there's something wrong with me. Not in a joking way, I really, genuinely, think I have a problem."

"Well, can't you go see a doctor about it?"

"I don't know if they'd understand. I don't know if anyone would."

"Maybe I would understand. You've listened to my problems before."

"Yeah, but this is different than that. This is big."

"What, so my problems aren't big? You don't think what's going on with me and Allison is big? Maybe not to you, but it consumes my whole life, Brian. Allison and my relationship with her basically is my life, besides from work and you guys, my friends. It's just as big as anything that could be happening to you," he said.

I sighed.

"That was the wrong thing to say, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I just-I just don't like to worry anyone. And I feel like if I told them it would. So I had an idea, just to go. You know, just leave. I don't know where. Maybe nowhere. Maybe leave…you know…different ways. But then I wouldn't worry people so much."

"I don't get what you mean," he said.

"Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. I think….think I'm just stressed out, is all. Maybe I should go see a doctor, get some pills to calm it down."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, man. But everyone gets stressed, it's not a burden. People understand, so don't worry so much."

I nodded my head, because I wanted to believe it. I nodded because I wanted to believe it myself, make it better that I didn't tell Andy the full extent of everything.

When he left the next morning, neither of us felt better because we'd kept what was truly going on bottled up. He never told me why he had showed up at my door, and I never told him what I had been doing in my bathroom before he arrived, why I had so many screwed up pieces of paper in my trash can or a nagging idea in my mind. He never told me, so I never told him.


	16. Chapter 16

**Claire.**

When my mom left, I stayed in my room. I decided to act like a stroppy brat, refusing to leave even when the housemaids knocked on the door for lunch. Instead, I sat around listening to music and writing in my journals. Now that college was over I didn't have any homework to do, but getting in some practice didn't hurt. As I wrote I remembered the optimism I had when I first began my course back when I was 18, thinking that once college was done I would go out to any publishing company I could find and with any luck they'd take me on as a writer. I knew now that life was never just as easy as that.

I listened to the sound of the front door and, with my window open, the sound of feet on the gravel. I heard each person inhabiting our house leaving, including Alec. I assumed he had gone to work, but I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd just left to have time for himself, or even left for good. When I heard his familiar foot steps outside, I switched from writing to drawing stars in the corner of the page, but I had to stop eventually as my eyes became too cloudly.

Before long I managed to rouse myself enough with my growling stomach to go get food. As I went downstairs, I realised I was alone and I felt it too.

I didn't leave my room for long, and when I returned and shut the door, I listened again for everyone to come home as the day went on. I heard the cars pulling up and the footsteps again, the sound of someone in the kitchen preparing food and I knew I would soon be hungry again for dinner. I stared down at my bed, at the empty packet of the chips I had chosen for my lunch, and I felt sluggish and fat. When I was a teenager, even when I was at college, chips were something I had steered clear of. It sounded stupid, really, but my friends always lectured each other on cutting carbs and how pointless they were; empty carbs is what they had called it. So like a lemming, I had refused to indulge on them unless I felt I really needed them. But like all junk food, whenever I did eat it, it made me feel great for all of 5 minutes before I felt worse again. Comfort food had never helped me at all.

I pushed my journals away and moved things onto the floor by my bed so I could wrap myself under my comforter and get warm again, noticing the chill coming from my window as the sky began to grow dark and evening pressed on. I couldn't sit still for long, though, and soon I had thrown the covers away from my body and I was stood up, pacing my room, feeling myself itching to talk to somebody, anybody. I knew I had more to say to Alec, to both of my parents. But I couldn't bring myself to go downstairs and say anything. Downstairs, under my feet, I could hear dull conversations begin in the living room. I heard my father's deep voice, my mother's high one, and Alec's, falling somewhere in the middle of each. He barely said a word as they spoke to him. I figured it would be awkward, being left alone with in-laws.

Well, they weren't yet that to him. Not legally, anyway.

I went over to my old record player, left in immaculate condition thanks to the house keeping, and I crouched to flip through my boxes of sleeves and music. I found my impulse-buy records of Cher and Paul McCartney, carried on until I found my old favourites that were worn at the edges and falling apart due to constant use. I smiled at my Madonna collection, an always rebellious favourite of mine with her odd bras and sinful lyrics. My parents hated whenever I played her. I debated putting her record on, bitting my lip and hesitating before choosing to flip to the next record, deciding that I wasn't in the mood for her right now. I found a Billy Idol 7" and decided on that one.

Once it was set up and I had put the needle down, I stood up as I waited for the guitar riff to ring out my speakers. I felt like a punk rocker, only I was an upper-class girl who wore far too much pink for that. My feet began to tap instinctively and before too long and I was kicking around my room, truly dancing with myself as the record suggested. I twirled in my spot, a-la Stevie Nicks, then threw my head and my arms around, appreciating the size of my bedroom because it allowed a lot of room for dancing. I jumped up and down, and for the first time in a while, I felt young again. I no longer felt like the strange, older woman who was engaged and preparing to move out fully on my own without the promise of returning home every Christmas or Summer at the end of classes. Once I had left, my room would probably become storage, or an exercise room. Maybe my parents wouldn't change anything. Either way, it wouldn't be my room anymore, none of it would belong to me. I decided to make the most of it while I could.

Before long, I knew that this summer would be a memory of the beginning of my marriage and the stupid argument over my mistakes, or maybe even a memory of turning it all around and surprising everyone and not getting married. Whichever way it went, it would be in the past soon enough and I would be even older, and everything would be different. I threw my head in the air again, and purposely stomped on the ground hard until I heard the voices downstairs stop due to my interruption. Nobody came upstairs, though.

When the record ended, I was out of breath but left wanting more. I missed the dancing clubs, with music that actually made you want to dance. It seemed like any songs that came out now were just dance or rap or some mix of the former with pop, and I had never caught onto that fad. Guitars also became more popular, but as they did, the power ballad seemed to die out and everything that I used to love singing along to stopped being played in the clubs I went to in Chicago. Alec and I often left them early, leaving the dance floor for the freshmen.

I missed how it used to be. I missed going out all the time, and the endless funds of money for drinking and having a good time. I missed being the young one sometimes, the one that made people envious because I had all the world ahead of me. I missed being reckless, breaking things, kicking boxes in empty buildings and smoking cigarettes daily. It was all stuff I had done with John.

That was why I wasn't sure if the marriage was going to go ahead. Not just because Alec hadn't made any attempt to see me or speak to me, but because subconsciously I kept going back to John. That was why I was taking space. I was remembering. Without even noticing, I had put the Flock of Seagulls record on, because it was the first one I grabbed when I put the Billy Idol one away, and now I was shimmying to one of their unreleased songs.

I knew if I could do anything different now, I might not have been such a richie. It was a stupid nickname for our group, our clique, but it had stuck, and all the other kids at school stuck their noses up at us just as much as we had stuck ours up at them. We hated the new wavers, the ones with the wacky clothes and weird hairstyles. That was what Allison had been, or at least Benny had once picked her out as one when we saw her in the halls. It didn't seem so bad in hindsight. But instead I was always a richie, even in college, when the name became yuppie but it still stuck just as hard. Maybe if I hadn't been one, I would have turned out differently at present.

I danced to a Flock of Seagulls as well. My dad had always said they were pointless noise, so I just danced harder.

None of my friends had ever liked them. It was funny; when being a richie, you had to like the same music. They thought I was weird when I occasionally branched out, shared records with Allison and John so my collection built up with rock, metal, punk, new wave, jazz and R&B. Flock of Seagulls had been an Allison find. Billy Idol had been a John find.

When I thought about John again, I got the urge to go out onto the roof. The window was still open and it had been too long since I had sat out there. So I did. I climbed out smoothly and found my place on the tiles, laying my back flat against the roofing so I could look up at the sky as it turned purple with night. I could still hear my record playing from my room and I wasn't afraid of being so high up and falling, like I sometimes used to be. In fact, being up on the roof made me feel more liberated than I had in a long time.

The fun was all spoiled when from my room I heard the sound of knocking on my door. I sat up at the sound, but made no move to come back inside. Instead, I turned and listened as whoever had been knocking entered my room, called my name and turned my stereo down. It was Alec.

"Claire?" he called again. I couldn't see him from my angle, but I knew he was pacing my room.

"Alec," I called back, welcoming him to come find me.

He appeared at the window a few moments later.

"Claire? What are you doing?"

"Sitting on the roof."

"Have you gone crazy? You'll fall! Come back in."

"Come sit out here with me. It's fun."

"You'll break your neck! Come back in!"

"Join me, seriously. Don't be scared. Climb through the window."

"No, Claire, come inside now. We need to talk and I'm not doing it on the roof."

"God, you sound like my father."

He reached his arms out the window, and he grabbed at me as I eventually moved up towards the ledge. By holding me, he made my climbing unsteady, making it look even more dangerous, and when I was eventually almost through the window we both tumbled into the room, with Alec catching me.

For a moment we looked at each other and neither of us said anything. I could tell he was angry at me. Angry that I hadn't come to see him earlier, angry that he'd found me outside, angry that I hadn't listened to him the first time he told me to come in. But I was angry too. I was angry that he hadn't come to see me first, and hadn't joined me on the roof. But I only knew one person who would be as crazy as me to do that. We were in near silence, except for the Flock of Seagulls record that kept on playing in the background.

Eventually, I shifted away from him, putting my weight on my feet and walking back into my room to turn my stereo down further so we could talk. As my back was to Alec, he also straightened himself out, and as I walked towards the record player I could see that he had brought me a plate of dinner up from downstairs and left it on my makeup table.

"You brought me dinner?" I asked.

"I assumed you wouldn't want to come down for it, after all the dancing you were doing. You know, you made quite a show of yourself downstairs and you weren't even in the room," he said.

"Good," I replied, and grinned. He smirked back at me, but then shook his head.

"I'm sorry I didn't come to bed last night," he said. I could tell he was edging around the subject.

"That's okay. I'm sorry I didn't come to find you."

"I didn't think you would." He sniffed and put his hands into his trouser pockets. "I never wanted to upset you, Claire. I never wanted to shout at you."

"Maybe I wanted you to."

"Why? Why would you want that?"

I shrugged, because I truthfully didn't know the answer.

"I guess I'm just used to that. I find it easier to argue that way. It makes things better in the end."

"Does it?" he paused. "See, when we first started dating, you told me that all you and your ex ever did was fight and make up. You said it made you go crazy. But I don't suppose you remember that."

"I didn't want it to be like that, I just wanted you to tell me how you were really feeling."

"I do, but I don't want to be him, Claire. You know that? I never wanted to be like him, so if that's what you were looking for last night, I couldn't give you that. But I suppose you went looking elsewhere in the end."

"I didn't cheat on you, if that's what you're suggesting, so don't even start that."

"I'm not, but I have a right to be angry. I have a right to be angry about the whole thing, but I'm mostly upset. I'm upset that you went behind my back, upset that you couldn't just see me instead, and I'm upset that you accepted my proposal in the first place when this whole time…" he stopped himself.

"This whole time what?" I urged.

"This whole time, he was always around. It was a mistake to come here. Maybe the whole thing was a mistake."

"Us?"

"Maybe," he said.

I pursed my lips and looked down at the ground. I remembered what my mother had told me earlier, about making the right choices and not making mistakes by picking the right person to spend your life with.

"What are you thinking?" he asked me suddenly. When I looked back at him, his eyes had widened and he honestly looked more scared than angry, as he had suggested earlier.

"I'm thinking about the rest of my life," I said quietly.

"I thought I would spend it with you," he told me, "but maybe I wanted too much from you. Maybe you were already spoken for."

My eyes shut tightly as I felt tears springing to them, and when I opened them again I carried on blinking away the tears.

"Claire," he said softly, stepping forward. I looked up. "It doesn't have to be like this."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Tell me that you want me to stay, and I will. Tell me that you want to spend the rest of your life with me, too, that you made mistakes but it's better now. That this is just another fight that one day will seem insignificant. Just tell me and it'll all be fine and it'll go away. I promise."

He walked until he was stood in front of me, holding my hand with one of his and brushing tears away from my cheeks with his other. Then he moved his hand up to my hair and brushed through it gently, encouraging me to speak.

"Please tell me, Claire. Tell me what you want to do," he spoke again.

I looked at him and he smiled, showing me optimism. An optimistic future with him. Maybe it would all be okay, in the morning at least, if I accepted it now and let myself fall into his arms. Then I could stop this awful album from playing and I could eat dinner in the dining room with my family and I wouldn't have to go out to the roof anymore. I wouldn't have to go to dingy bars downtown to find Alec, because he would always be there. He wouldn't be in San Diego.

Slowly I edged my hand closer to his touching mine, but I didn't take his in my own. Instead I closed it around my ring finger and slid off my engagement ring. Alec watched the whole time, but I didn't dare look at him.

I loved the album too much, and I hated formal dinners. I loved sitting on the roof and looking at the stars, and I loved the Romany. I wanted to run away to San Diego, and I wanted to fall into someone's arms that weren't Alec's, clad in a yuppie blazer. I wanted it to be John.

Alec let go of me, took my ring from my hand and left my room then, saying no more and leaving as quietly as if he had never been there, just a bad dream. Our whole relationship, all the years, turned into nothing. I could finally see what a break up was like from the other perspective, like I was John when he broke up with me.

All I could do was cry, alone in my room. I wondered if he had done the same too.

Some time later I called Brian with the idea that I would cry down to him on the phone. But when he answered, something about his voice sounded off, as if it was cold and uninviting. I immediately changed my mind.

"Brian, this is going to sound really weird and stupid of me. Maybe even crazy, but I just really need you to give me the address of John's apartment."

Perhaps it was stupid. More than that. I didn't even know if he would be there. It wasn't yet the 30th, but for all I knew he could be on a plane, or out of the state, or anywhere in the world away from me. I forgot constantly that his life didn't revolve around what I was doing, and anytime I needed to see him I just might not find him. Despite the fact, I knew I had to at least try.

I managed to pull myself together enough to pull on a light jacket and my shoes. I let the dinner go cold on my makeup table as I left my room for the first time that day after finishing the phone call with Brian. When I headed downstairs, I walked by the living room, but didn't look too closely at the scene. I knew it was my parents and Alec, and probably a few others because we always had guests. How embarrassing that they had heard all of the fight through the thin walls, been witness to my brutal ending. In their eyes, I was in the wrong.

"Claire!" my mother said, standing from the sofa and starting over to me.

I shook my head.

"I'm going out," I said.

"Where are you going at this hour?" my father asked sternly. His hands were clasped together tightly.

"To an old friends."

"Claire, remember what I told you. How everything..." my mother began.

"I'm sorry. Maybe I will regret it one day. But right now..." I looked from my mother and into the living room. As Alec raised his eyes to see me, I turned on my heel and walked away. They all called after me, but I just closed the door as I headed outside, finally feeling free from the cage that was my family home and all the people in it.


End file.
